THAT   BOY   OF   YOURS 

SYMPATHETIC  STUDIES  OF  BOYHOOD 


BY 

JAMES  S.  KIRTLEY 


HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


//Q.79'7 


Copyright,  1912, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


FOKEWORD 

This  book  has  been  written  for  all  the  friends 
of  the  boy,  including  his  kindred,  guardians, 
teachers  and  neighbours.  My  point  of  view  is 
not  technical:  it  is  first  of  all  that  of  a  former 
boy.  The  consciousness  of  being  an  ex-boy  has 
never  left  me  and  my  frequent  lapses  into  the 
estate  of  boyhood  have  been  among  the  most  in- 
forming and  refreshing  experiences  of  my  life. 
Most  of  the  chapters  ef  this  book  have  been  writ- 
ten during  those  relapses.  My  point  of  view  has 
been  corrected  and  confirmed  by  efforts,  extend- 
ing over  a  number  of  years,  to  do  something  for 
boys  and  with  them:  those  efforts  having  been  of 
more  value  to  me  than  to  the  boys. 

I  have  also  sought  to  avail  myself  of  the  knowl- 
edge brought  to  us  by  specialists  in  physiology, 
psychology  and  pedagogy,  though  I  frankly  con- 
fess that  some  of  their  views  do  not  always  ac- 
cord with  those  that  I  have  gained  from  experi- 
ence and  observation. 

These  thirty-seven  chapters  seek  to  give  sug- 
gestive answers  to  as  many  questions  about  the 
boy.  If  they  serve  that  purpose  the  reader  will 
be  able  to  furnish  his  own  answers  to  the  thou- 
sand and  one  other  questions  that  are  sure  to  come 
up  in  connection  with  every  boy. 


464763 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  His  TABLE  OP  CONTENTS 1 

II  His  BODY 7 

III  His  APPETITE 16 

IV  His  CURIOSITY 23 

V  His  POWER  OP  IMITATION 29 

VI  His  IMAGINATION 35 

VII  PAST  AND  FUTURE 44 

VIII  His  ILLS  AND  EPOCHS 51 

IX  His  SPORTS 60 

X  His  EMPLOYMENTS 68 

XI  His  POSSESSIONS 77 

XII  His  SPARE  TIME 81 

XIII  His  LOOKS 87 

XIV  His  GANG 93 

XV  His  CHUMS 99 

XVI  His  HEROES 104 

XVII  His  SWEETHEARTS 109 

XVIII  FORMING  His  HABITS 116 

XIX  CULTIVATING  His  WILL 122 

XX  BEING  His  OWN  MAN                           ,  129 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXI  THE  BOY  PRODIGY  .     .     .     .    v     .     .  136 

XXII  ORGANISING  BOYS  .     .     .     .     .     .     .  142 

XXIII  His  MOTIVES     .     ....     .     .     .  149 

XXIV  His  FAILINGS    ........  157 

XXV  His  PUNISHMENTS       ......  165 

XXVI    His  TROUBLES 171 

XXVII  THREE  PERILS 176 

XXVIII  His  HOME .  .  183 

XXIX  His  ROOM 190 

XXX  His  FATHER .  .  194 

XXXI  His  BROTHER  AND  SISTER  ....  200 

XXXII  His  READING 206 

XXXIII  His  TEACHER 212 

XXXIV  His  LONG  APPRENTICESHIP     ....  219 
XXXV  His  COLLEGE  LIFE       .     .     .     .     .     .225 

XXXVI    His  VOCATION 234 

XXXVII  His  RELIGION                                        .  240 


THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 


HIS  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

His  life  is  a  volume  and  its  contents  are  volumi- 
nous. Sometimes  we  feel  like  calling  it  a  "sacred 
volume "  and  again  a  "volume  of  fantastic  lore." 
It  becomes  a  story — an  epic,  in  time — but,  to  start 
with,  it  often  has  the  disconnectedness  of  a  dic- 
tionary. 

It  would  not  be  hard  to  make  out  a  boy's  "table 
of  contents "  if  he  were  only  a  "little  man,"  as 
he  is  sometimes,  playfully  or  patronisingly,  called. 
But  he  is  not  a  "little  man,"  any  more  than  his 
father  is  a  "big  boy,"  or  a  caterpillar  is  a  little 
butterfly.  He  is  a  prospective  man,  an  enfolded 
man,  as  his  father  is  an  unfolded  boy.  The  differ- 
ence between  him  and  a  man  is  not  a  difference 
in  quantity,  or  quality,  but  the  difference  between 
enfoldedness  and  unfoldedness. 

When  he  starts  out  to  be  a  boy,  he  is  more  like 
a  little  beast  and  many  things  that  make  the  dif- 
ference between  a  man  and  a  beast  make  no  differ- 
ence to  him.  The  saving  fact,  though,  is  that  he 
is  a  man  in  embryo.  If  the  evolutionist  is  right, 

1 


2  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUKS 

the  animal  structure  which  he  possesses  has  trav- 
elled all  the  way  from  the  protozoan  to  his  present 
place  as  heir  apparent  to  the  crown  of  creation. 
The  earth  of  the  animal  has  not  all  fallen  off  yet 
and  will  not,  with  his  consent,  till  he  begins  his 
preparations  to  quit  being  a  boy.  The  differ- 
ences between  him  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  will 
begin  to  show  themselves  as  his  awakening  con- 
sciousness gets  hold  of  the  task  of  controlling  him. 
He  is  an  animal  and  we  are  not  allowed  to  forget 
that,  at  any  time  in  his  career ;  but  he  is  more,  by 
the  measure  of  infinity. 

There's  variety  in  a  boy.  The  manifold  phys- 
ical hungers  and  thirsts  of  the  animal  are  in  all 
his  senses  and  they  keep  all  the  sources  of  supply 
at  work,  day  and  night.  Through  the  wonderful 
nervous  system,  the  nexus  between  him  and  his 
body,  by  which  he  expresses  himself  and  initiates 
his  >  enterprises,  his  body  is  so  tied  up  with  the 
mental  and  moral  that  its  health  and  purity  re- 
quire the  same  care  as  do  the  finest  elements  and 
essences.  His  physical  elements  are,  of  course, 
the  same,  in  number,  as  in  grown  people.  Some 
of  them  are  in  action,  some  dormant,  some  quies- 
cent ;  some  subordinate,  while  others  are  in  control 
— such  as  love  and  hatred,  hope  and  fear,  sense  of 
justice,  appreciation  of  the  beautiful,  the  sublime 
and  the  true,  and  all  the  powers  of  thought  and 
will.  But  even  his  most  active  powers  are  imma- 
ture and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  distinguish  one 
from  another.  His  power  of  observation  is  awake 


HIS  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  3 

before  that  of  decision,  his  feelings  control  earlier 
than  his  reason,  his  reason  before  his  will  and  his 
will  before  his  conscience.  His  sense  of  the  worth 
and  the  rights  of  others  comes  late.  But  all  such 
statements  must  be  general.  We  cannot  time  the 
entries  as  by  a  watch  and  say:  "In  three  years 
and  six  days,  his  intellect  will  arrive  and  begin 
work";  or  "When  the  clock  strikes  his  twelfth 
year,  instead  of  the  blind  impulses  that  have  been 
controlling  him,  his  will  power  will  awaken  and 
assume  the  control  of  his  career." 

It  must  also  be  said  that  the  varied  elements  of 
his  nature  are  not  very  well  acquainted  with  each 
other,  to  begin  with.  Mutual  misunderstandings 
among  them  take  up  much  of  his  energy.  The 
feelings  get  into  trouble  with  their  neighbours,  the 
judgment  and  the  conscience.  In  the  group  of 
feelings  discords  will  arise  between  the  different 
kinds. 

Filial  sentiments  prompt  him  to  obedience,  as  a 
son,  while  the  food  or  play  instincts  may  push  him 
in  a  contrary  direction.  He  often  knows  better 
than  he  does,  better  than  he  wants  to  do.  He  may 
never  be  able  to  grow  out  of  that  infirmity,  en- 
tirely, but  he  may  become  less  infirm,  with  the 
passing  years.  He  may  not  have  such  self-con- 
trol that  the  remembrance  of  a  stomach-ache,  of 
the  previous  night,  will  wholly  restrain  all  desire 
for  the  food  that  brought  it  on.  He  is  somewhat 
like  the  climate  of  the  Holy  Land  as  described  in 
a  boy's  composition:  "The  climate  of  Palestine 


4  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

is  very  hot  and  mountainous,  especially  where  the 
country  is  flat.". 

Further — he  doesn't  seem  to  be  very  well  ac- 
quainted with  himself.  He  hasn't  time  to  know 
himself — he  is  too  busy  being  a  boy.  He  learns 
himself  by  piecemeal.  He  is  sometimes  shocked 
by  what  he  discovers,  sometimes  awed,  sometimes 
stricken  with  fear.  When  he  learns  his  ability 
to  swear  or  do  a  mean  thing,  he  often  recoils  so 
thoroughly  as  never  to  go  near  that  sin  again. 
He  is  sometimes  alarmed  at  finding  what  he  lacks 
and  what  he  cannot  do.  It  is  not  conceit  disap- 
pointed, but  ignorance  made  aware  of  itself. 

At  first  he  doesn't  know  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect.  He  is  ready  to  pilot  a  boat,  handle  fire- 
arms, drive  an  auto  or  attempt  any  daring  thing, 
without  learning  or  license.  Somewhere  within 
that  personality  of  his  is  a  power  capable  of  con- 
trolling and  co-ordinating  all  his  curious  and  con- 
flicting endowments — in  time,  with  some  assist- 
ance. 

Another  fact  or  two  must  be  noted.  While  his 
immature  powers  are  capable  of  almost  limitless 
expansion,  they  are  also  susceptible  to  infection 
from  without,  with  good  or  evil,  in  body,  mind, 
heart  and  conscience.  While  expansion  is  from 
within,  the  material  for  expansion  is  without. 
The  difference  between  his  little  body  and  the  big 
body  that  is  to  be,  he  must  gather  from  his  en- 
vironment and  build  into  himself.  So  his  little 
body  takes  hold  of  his  environment  of  food,  air, 


HIS  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  5 

water,  light,  and  secures  the  rest  of  itself.  His 
soul,  vexed  with  the  sense  of  its  incompleteness, 
may  lay  hold  of  truth  and  fact  and  love  and  power 
and  righteousness,  as  he  finds  them  in  nature  and 
man  and  God,  and  grow  into  its  full  stature.  In 
order  to  be  prompted  to  self-expansion  he  has 
hungers,  power  of  discrimination,  assimilation, 
imitation  and  imagination.  He  is  also  capable  of 
rebirth,  through  infection  from  without.  Some 
new  truth  rushes  in  and  there  is  birth  of  the  mind ; 
some  sweet  love  slips  into  the  heart  and  there  is 
a  rebirth  of  the  emotions ;  some  new  beauty  flames 
before  the  vision  and  there  is  a  rebirth  of  the 
ideals  and  the  whole  life. 

Now,  a  few  suggestions  to  his  friends  and  kin- 
dred :  First — know  his  contents,  at  the  start  and 
at  every  stage.  The  study  will  be  more  fascinat- 
ing than  any  romance  you  ever  read. 

Second — read  to  him  his  table  of  contents;  not 
all,  at  first,  but  as  his  understanding  and  self-con- 
trol allow  him  to  make  wise  use  of  the  knowledge. 
The  pedagogical  art  reaches  its  highest  achieve- 
ment as  it  aids  you  to  put  him  in  possession  of 
the  intimate  facts  of  his  unfolding  and  myste- 
rious powers,  in  a  way  to  give  him  mastery  of 
himself. 

Third — till  he  wakens  to  the  task  of  handling 
his  forces,  take  control  of  him.  He  is  lost,  if  some- 
one does  not  do  this. 

Fourth — put  him  in  charge  of  himself  as  early 
as  possible.  Watch  for  the  awakening  of  his 


6  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

leading  powers  and  train  them  for  their  supreme 
mission  of  self-direction. 

Fifth — guard  him  against  egotism  and  egoism, 
as  well.  The  egotist  thinks  much  of  himself,  the 
egoist  much  about  himself — both  are  to  be  pitied. 
Too  intimate  knowledge  of  himself,  at  the  imma- 
ture stage,  will  make  him  both  egotistical  and 
egoistical.  Both  evils  may  be  prevented  and  one 
means  of  prevention  will  be  some  example  which 
will  disclose  his  possibilities  and  stimulate  his 
powers.  That  leads  to  the  next  suggestion. 

Sixth — he  must  see  the  realization  of  his  ideals, 
must  see  the  finished  volume,  in  the  person  of  his 
father,  or  some  near  and  dear  one,  and  be  led, 
thereby,  to  aspire  and  hope.  Play  with  other 
boys  and  a  generous  amount  of  work  are  usually 
directive  toward  perfection.  He  is  an  instinctive 
imitator ;  he  needs  something  worth  imitating ;  he 
needs  to  have  right  motives  implanted. 


II 

HIS  BODY 

THERE  is  only  one  other  earthly  object  as  at- 
tractive as  a  well-built,  growing  lad  and  one  can 
guess  that  that  is  a  growing  girl.  The  invisible 
angels  must  be  around  him,  taking  notice  and  get- 
ting points.  He  has  a  sense  of  reverence,  too,  for 
angelic  or  other  eminent  beings. 

We  are  compelled  to  confess  the  accuracy  of 
the  Psalmist's  words  and  say,  he  is  " fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made."  Muscle  and  mind  and 
morals ;  blood  and  bone  and  brain  and  brawn  and 
body  in  general ;  playing  and  praying  and  pound- 
ing and,  sometimes,  pouting;  jumping  and  jolting 
and  jollying  and  jostling — such  is  the  medley 
brought  to  our  view  by  a  boy. 

He  is  not  all  body,  by  any  means,  but  he  is  all 
there  in  his  body,  and,  if  it  is  not  in  a  condition  to 
perform  its  functions  and  duties,  he  is  usually 
very  unhappy ;  if  it  is  ready  to  co-operate  with  him 
in  his  plans,  it  is  his  delightful  and  confidential 
friend.  Sickness  is  tragical.  When  he  must  lie 
in  the  house  and  hear  the  merry  voices  of  his 
mates  at  play,  it  is  one  of  the  acutest  sorrows  of 
his  boyhood. 

His  body  is  the  house  in  which  he  lives  and  it 

7 


8  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

is  the  instrument  with  which  he  achieves  his  pur- 
poses. It  is  a  movable  house  and  can  find  footing 
and  keep  its  equilibrium  at  any  level  or  angle, 
between  the  basement  and  the  cornice  just  out- 
side the  window  of  the  top  floor.  He  loves  to 
make  use  of  his  body  for  falling  out  of  bed  in  his 
sleep,  swinging  his  legs  out  of  the  third  story  win- 
dow, jumping  from  the  barn  loft,  sliding  down  the 
banister  without  touching  his  hands,  riding  a 
bucking  broncho,  climbing  up  the  water  spout, 
yelling  himself  hoarse  and  everybody  else  deaf. 
It  is  a  fine  house  and  a  great  instrument. 

He  usually  has  to  fight  for  his  body  and  then 
he  fights  with  it.  There  is  an  early  age,  which 
each  of  us  can  at  least  partially  remember,  when 
predatory  diseases  were  hounding  us,  and,  for 
one  boy  who  escaped,  at  least  three  fought  it  out 
— mumps,  measles  and  the  whole  list.  Sometimes 
he  lost  his  house  and  was  evicted,  but  usually  he 
held  possession,  though,  now  and  then,  a  window 
was  dimmed,  or  cracked,  or  broken,  or  some  use- 
ful or  ornamental  part  was  injured.  He  is  bat- 
tling for  a  good  constitution,  the  foundation  of 
his  house.  It  is  claimed  that  between  eight  and 
twelve,  he  is  fighting  for  and  adopting  his  consti- 
tution. The  rest  of  the  time,  till  he  is  twenty-five, 
he  is  evidently  working  out  his  by-laws. 

His  passion  for  running  all  sorts  of  risks  is  one 
of  his  early  perils  and  it  is  inveterate.  It  seems 
scarcely  possible  for  him  to  escape  the  fracture 
of  a  bone.  The  doctor  had  to  be  called,  two  differ- 


HIS  BODY  9 

ent  times,  to  come  and  put  my  wrecked  collar  bone 
into  proper  connection  with  the  rest  of  my  ana- 
tomical structure,  and  just  how  he  escaped  being 
called  twenty  times,  for  similar  services,  I  can't 
understand.  And  it  was  before  the  rage  for  the  ' 
present  style  of  football,  too.  Once  a  horse  I  was 
riding  allowed  himself  to  become  excited  by  my 
intemperate  effort  to  get  up  speed,  and  the  other 
time  a  neighbour  boy  with  whom  I  was  wrestling 
had  too  much  muscle  for  me.  But  there  was  val- 
uable education  in  it  all  for  me. 

As  the  house  in  which  he  lives  and  the  instru- 
ment with  which  he  works,  his  body  is  astonish- 
ingly adapted  to  his  purpose.  He  fills  the  house 
full.  He  and  the  instrument  are  a  part  of  each 
other.  It  not  only  executes  his  thought  but  ex- 
presses it,  as  well.  The  deaf  and  dumb  show  its 
possibilities,  as  they  put  the  most  profound 
truths  and  delicate  feelings  into  the  postures  of 
the  body,  the  movements  of  the  hands  and  the  ex- 
pression of  the  face.  If  the  body  is  the  instru- 
ment for  revealing  the  mind,  it  ought  to  be  the 
cleanest,  keenest,  readiest,  strongest,  best  trained 
instrument  possible. 

It  is  also  a  measure,  though  not  the  only 
measure,  of  the  mind's  power.  Dr.  W.  T.  Porter 
of  St.  Louis  and  Dr.  Charles  Roberts  of  England 
have  examined  many  thousand  school  children 
and  have  reached  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a 
definite  relation  between  the  size,  weight,  chest 
and  girth,  on  the  one  side  and  the  intellect,  on 


10  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

the  other.  If  the  boy  is  made  up  of  soul  and  body, 
he  reaches  perfection  in  the  degree  in  which  the 
two  suit  each  other  and  work  together,  under  the 
complete  control  of  the  mind. 

The  body  does  still  more  for  him.  It  reacts 
upon  him,  and  he  upon  it.  Air,  light  and  mois- 
ture affect  the  nerve  cells  and  modify  his  states 
of  mind.  If  he  has  not  been  taught  to  control 
himself  and  all  his  powers,  he  will  become  the 
plaything  of  fitful  circumstances.  The  interplay 
of  the  two  is  more  singular  in  a  boy  than  in  a 
man.  It  is  claimed  that  great  agony  may  so  ex- 
cite the  nerves  as  to  turn  the  hair  grey  in  one 
night.  Anger  may  paralyse  the  motor  nerves, 
especially  those  of  speech,  though  it  sometimes 
stimulates  them.  Emotion,  especially  fear,  may 
prostrate  like  sickness.  A  thought  may  start  the 
sensor  nerves  and  the  motor  nerves  may  follow. 
When  a  boy  thinks  of  fruit,  on  returning  from 
school  in  the  afternoon,  his  mouth  waters.  That's 
the  sensor  nerves.  Then  he  goes  right  to  where 
the  fruit  is.  That's  his  motor  nerves.  We  have 
been  taught,  in  many  ways,  that  the  mind  may 
get  so  fully  in  command  of  the  body  as  to  reshape 
it,  protecting  it  from  injury  and  imparting  to  it  a 
higher  quality  of  beauty  and  strength. 

Conservation  of  bodily  strength,  through  clean- 
liness and  fresh  air,  is  the  first  thing  needed. 
Physical  health  is  a  mental  and  moral  asset.  The 
development  of  the  body  is  a  discipline  of  the  boy. 
To  train  the  hand  is  to  teach  the  heart.  The  edu- 


HIS  BODY  11 

cation  of  muscle  and  mind  goes  on  at  one  time. 
The  other  day  the  physical  director  of  a  Y.  M.  C. 
A.  Boys'  department  told  me  he  always  insists 
that  a  boy  must  keep  his  body  clean  and  go  into 
details  in  doing  so.  He  must  keep  his  finger-nails 
and  toe-nails  trimmed  and  clean,  see  that  the 
nasal  passages  are  open,  look  after  his  eyes  and 
ears  and  especially  his  throat.  It  is  important 
for  his  mental  and  moral,  as  well  as  physical,  good. 
Of  course,  parents  have  to  do  this  for  him  till  he 
gets  the  habit  of  doing  it  for  himself  and  he  will 
get  the  habit  as  soon  as  he  sees  that  something  is 
dependent  on  it  or  sees  someone,  on  whom  he  is 
dependent,  taking  care  of  himself  in  the  right  way. 
A  boy  usually  has  a  distinct  aversion  to  washing, 
on  the  ground  that  he  will  soon  get  dirty  again. 
A  boy  sent  away  from  the  table  to  wash  his  face 
came  back  with  only  slight  improvement,  but  re- 
plied to  the  complaint  with  which  he  was  greeted, 
"I  washed  all  right,  but  didn't  think  it  necessary 
to  go  into  details." 

It  is  almost  as  important  as  life  itself  to  have 
him  cleanly.  It  adds  to  his  self-respect  and  makes 
him  careful  in  other  things.  It  develops  self-con- 
trol and  is  a  mental  and  moral  discipline.  But, 
at  first,  he  cannot  understand  much  you  are  doing 
for  him,  in  keeping  him  clean,  rather,  in  compell- 
ing him  to  keep  himself  clean.  Family  worship 
is  superior,  in  value,  only  to  family  cleanliness. 

Conservation,  through  chastity,  is  a  serious 
necessity.  At  a  certain  age  of  storm  and  stress 


12  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

his  greatest  peril  is  through  his  sex  organisation, 
and  he  can  be  mightily  helped,  at  the  most  critical 
period,  by  keeping  his  body  clean,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  you  give  him  the  right  amount  of 
knowledge  of  his  vital  physical  functions,  and 
some  conception  of  his  physical  sacredness.  The 
advice  given  Wendell  Phillips  by  his  mother  when 
he  started  off  to  college,  is  just  the  thing  for  the 
young  boy  of  the  household :  "My  son,  keep  your 
linen  clean,  read  your  Bible  every  day  and  let 
plenty  of  fresh  air  into  your  room." 

Any  form  of  dissipation  is  waste  of  vital  ma- 
terial which  he  will  be  sure  to  need  in  some  emer- 
gency. After  smoking  like  a  locomotive  for  a 
number  of  years,  I  quit  it  for  three  reasons.  It 
cost  me  one  hundred  cents  for  every  dollar  I  spent 
and  that  was  a  dead  loss  to  me  and  to  others;  it 
was  using  up  good  nerve  force  that  I  afterwards 
found  I  needed  very  much ;  it  was  an  example  for 
some  young  fellows  to  whom  I  didn't  want  to  teach 
the  art  of  smoking.  A  good  way  to  help  a  boy 
avoid  that  kind  of  waste  is  through  his  talent  for 
imitating. 

No  mention  need  be  made  right  here  of  the  right 
kind  of  food,  cooked  right  and  served  in  generous 
quantities,  for  that  will  come  in  the  next  chapter. 
The  essential  thing  is  that  he  be  put  in  entire 
charge  of  his  body  as  soon  as  possible,  with  ac- 
curate and  reverent  knowledge  of  all  its  functions, 
the  ordinary  and  extraordinary,  the  general  and 


HIS  BODY  13 

special.  The  brain  is  of  full  size  by  the  time  he  is 
sixteen  and  he  must  be  in  wholesome  control  of 
his  body  by  that  time. 

Something  more  must  be  said  about  the  part  his 
muscles  play  in  his  life.  Their  weight  is  43  per 
cent,  of  the  weight  of  the  whole  body  and  they  are 
the  instruments  for  executing  the  purposes  of  the 
will  and  of  training  it,  the  organs  for  the  expres- 
sion of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  in  almost  endless 
ways,  the  instruments  of  digestion,  and  the  means 
of  expression  of  the  life  in  all  its  deeds.  Motor 
discipline  is  mental  development.  The  culture  of 
the  muscles  reacts  on  the  brain  cells  as  nothing 
else  does.  To  quote  from  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall: 
"Muscles  are  the  vehicles  of  habituation,  imita- 
tion, obedience,  character,  and  even  of  manners 
and  customs.  For  the  young,  motor  education  is 
cardinal  and  is  now  coming  to  due  recognition; 
and  for  all,  education  is  incomplete  without  a  mo- 
tor side.  Skill,  endurance  and  perseverance  may 
almost  be  called  muscular  virtues;  and  fatigue, 
velleity,  caprice,  ennui,  restlessness,  lack  of  self- 
control  and  poise,  muscular  faults." 

The  farm  is  the  best  place  for  motor  develop- 
ment. The  accumulation  of  muscular  power  in 
boyhood  is  the  laying  up  of  treasures  for  the  day 
of  need.  The  present  is  a  time  of  great  peril  to 
his  muscles.  In  the  factories  and  offices  only  a  few 
of  them  are  called  into  use,  and  in  all  activities, 
machinery  relieves  him  of  so  much  that  no  one  who 


14  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUBS 

lives  in  the  city  is  capable  of  proper  maturity  un- 
less lie  secures  scientific  physical  training. 

There  is  a  principle  in  nature  called  the  conver- 
sion of  energy,  by  which  force  passes  from  lower 
to  higher  forms;  for  example,  as  light,  heat  and 
electricity.  So  our  bodily  powers  are  to  be  con- 
verted into  love-force,  aesthetic-force,  mental-force, 
social-force. 

One  of  the  problems  most  likely  to  vex  his  par- 
ents and  friends  is  his  irregular  growth.  Some- 
times his  bones  grow  faster  than  his  muscles  and 
sometimes  the  muscles  are  in  the  lead ;  and,  all  the 
time,  mysterious  powers  are  awaking.  That  re- 
quires cleanliness.  The  old  Mosaic  teachings  gave 
the  Jews  a  most  sanitary  law.  The  physicians  of 
to-day  have  learned  that  the  old  Hebrew  rite  is 
well-nigh  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  boy  and 
of  untold  value  in  his  mental  and  moral  life. 
Some  day  the  parents  who  neglect  that  provision 
against  bodily  and  moral  disease  will  be  the  ex- 
ception to  the  general  rule. 

To  summarise:  there  must  be  development  of 
strength  through  food,  work,  play,  physical  ex- 
ercise of  special  kinds  and  cheerfulness;  conser- 
vation of  power,  through  cleanliness,  chastity, 
self-control,  service;  refinement  of  power,  by; 
conversion  into  the  higher  form  of  force — ethical, 
religious,  mental,  aesthetic,  social, — through  mind 
treatment  and  control  of  all  bodily  functions  and 
organs;  and  the  consecration  of  each  and  all  to 
life's  sublime  purposes.  This  is  the  task;  it  is  not 


HIS  BODY  15 

small.  Nature  expects  him  to  achieve  his  long 
and  difficult  task,  in  the  three  old  ways,  listening 
to  precepts — knowledge;  imitating  examples — in- 
spiration ;  trying  to  do  it— experience. 


ni 

HIS   APPETITE 

THIS  is  a  capacious  subject,  wide,  deep  and  long. 
A  boy,  when  asked  if  he  could  name  the  three 
graces,  replied:  "Yes;  breakfast,  dinner  and 
supper."  The  answer  is  instructive.  He  must 
have  food  because  he  has  a  body  to  build,  a  house 
in  which  his  growing  soul  can  have  plenty  of  room 
to  expand;  it  must  become  the  enduring  and  reli- 
able instrument  for  accomplishing  his  mission  in 
the  world.  In  building  that  body  he  must  put  into 
it  reserves  on  which  he  can  make  unlimited  drafts 
for  meeting  life 's  duties  and  exigencies. 

A  grown  man's  body  has  already  been  built  and 
he  needs  only  enough  food  to  keep  up  the  repairs 
and  decorations  and  enable  him  to  do  his  work;  a 
boy  has  to  take  in  enough,  each  day,  to  go  on  with 
the  building,  keep  up  the  repairs,  do  the  decorat- 
ing, achieve  his  mission,  as  a  boy,  and  put  some- 
thing in  the  reserve  fund  besides.  He  starts  in  at 
a  rapid  pace,  seeking  refreshments  every  waking 
hour,  and  by  the  time  he  is  fifteen  or  twenty,  he  has 
reached  a  speed  that  is  as  exciting  to  the  onlookers 
as  it  is  exhilarating  to  himself. 

His  reputation,  in  that  respect,  stands  on  the 
solid  foundation  of  achievement.  A  teacher,  in 

16 


HIS  APPETITE  17 

talking  with  some  friends  about  the  gustatory 
habits  of  certain  animals,  said :  "Now,  the  cater- 
pillar will  eat  six  hundred  times  its  own  weight, 
in  one  month's  time,"  and  an  old  lady,  somewhat 
deaf,  leaned  over  and  asked:  "Whose  boy  did 
you  say?" 

A  large  part  of  his  food  supply  is  used  up  in  his 
activities.  His  first  six  years  are  his  most  active 
time  and  he  doesn't  slow  up  much  till  he  is  six- 
teen. His  heaviest  eating  is  at  that  time,  just  as 
he  is  finishing  his  brain  structure. 

Each  man  with  a  spark  of  memory  can  confirm 
these  statements  from  his  own  experience.  In  the 
spring  time,  down  on  the  farm,  I  used  to  go  out  to 
the  field  in  the  morning  with  all  the  pockets  in 
coat  and  trousers  full  of  apples,  and  come  back  at 
noon  with  all  those  apples  inside  of  me,  but  ready 
for  a  dinner  of  ham  and  eggs  and  cabbage  and 
potatoes  and  milk  and  two  kinds  of  hot  bread,  and 
pie,  or  cobbler,  and  the  rest.  History  would  re- 
peat itself  in  the  afternoon,  and  an  equal  load  of 
apples  would  be  taken  to  the  field,  to  prevent  utter 
starvation  and  to  prime  the  appetite  for  supper. 
An  iron  constitution  was  the  result  of  those  mar- 
velous gastronomic  feats,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
unusual  amount  of  work  I  was  thereby  enabled 
to  accomplish,  at  ploughing  and  other  jobs. 

If  the  boy  in  question  lives  in  the  country,  as  I 
did,  and  ploughs  corn,  as  I  did  when  I  couldn't  get 
out  of  it,  he  can  plough  all  day,  as  I  did,  when  I 
simply  had  to,  eat  three  suppers  at  once,  as  I 


18  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

never  failed  to  do,  go  to  bed  and  plough  all  night — 
as  I  always  did — and  if  he  sleeps  with  his  older 
brother,  as  I  did,  he  can  make  that  brother  wish 
he  had  never  been  born;  then  he  will  be  ready 
for  a  couple  of  breakfasts  and  for  work,  while  his 
brother  will  mope  around  and  regret  the  day  he 
formed  the  acquaintance  of  his  younger  brother. 
But  that's  really  another  story. 

Now,  as  he  would  have  to  have  that  food  for 
these  sacred  purposes,  whether  he  liked  food  or 
not,  what  a  fortunate  thing  it  is  that  he  really 
likes  it.  Otherwise,  eating  would  be  mere  drud- 
gery, like  the  work  of  the  roustabouts  loading  a 
steamboat  while  the  mate  drives  and  curses  and 
threatens  them.  As  it  is,  taking  on  those  supplies 
is  one  of  the  delights  of  his  boyhood. 

That  appetite  of  his,  unless  it  is  tampered  with, 
is  one  of  the  most  intelligent  of  all  the  faculties 
with  which  he  works,  and  it  helps  him  solve  some 
vital  and  far-reaching  problems.  Later  on,  his 
judgment  will  help,  when  it  learns  how,  but  his 
appetite  is  looking  after  his  interests  all  the  time 
— by  desiring  food,  discriminating,  appropriating 
and  discarding.  The  building  he  is  erecting  and 
the  machine  he  is  constructing  out  of  his  food  re- 
quire three  things — a  great  variety  of  material, 
the  best  quality  and  large  quantities,  as  before 
mentioned.  We  get  a  good  idea  of  the  variety 
required  from  the  analysis  of  the  human  body 
which  scientists  have  made.  It  is  found  to  have 
lime,  carbon,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  phosphorus,  iron 


HIS  APPETITE  19 

and  some  other  ingredients  and  they  all  go  into  the 
body  as  food,  except  what  comes  in  as  air,  which 
is  mainly  oxygen.  They  have  to  be  in  the  right 
proportions,  too.  Imagine  the  result  if  he  gets 
too  much  lime  and  runs  to  bones ;  or  oxygen  and 
becomes  flighty  and  fighty.  Too  much  phosphorus 
will  turn  him  into  a  will  o*  the  wisp. 

No  boy,  no  doctor,  could  tell,  for  the  life  of  him, 
exactly  the  proportion  in  which  he  should  com- 
bine these  ingredients,  at  a  given  time,  and  there 
is  where  his  intelligent  appetite  comes  to  his  aid 
and  saves  the  day.  To  prevent  neglect  of  eating, 
nature  keeps  him  hungry  all  the  time,  and  to  keep 
him  from  overstocking  himself  with  any  one 
chemical  element  she  gives  his  appetite  a  desire 
for  the  thing  he  needs,  at  a  given  time.  An  appe- 
tite that  works  normally  is  better  than  a  doctor 
or  a  trained  nurse.  When  he  needs  acids  it 
prompts  him  to  lemonade,  or  pickles,  or  butter- 
milk, or  fruit.  When  he  needs  alkalies,  or  fats, 
the  signal  comes  in  at  the  proper  time  and  in  a 
convincing  way.  He  is  always  obedient  to  the 
inner  light  on  this  duty.  Of  course,  if  his  appe- 
tite is  mistreated,  it  loses  its  discrimination  and 
skill.  That  is  one  reason  I  am  writing  on  the 
subject. 

In  this  building  scheme,  his  parents  are  usually 
the  superintendents  of  construction,  while  he  is 
contractor  and  builder.  By  and  by,  he  will  take 
over  their  part  as  well  as  his  own.  They  have 
to  get  him  trained  to  take  complete  charge. 


20  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

Is  he  equal  to  the  task  of  providing  the  material 
in  sufficient  quantity  and  quality  and  variety?  He 
is  apt  to  get  enough  if  it  is  in  reach.  And  this  is 
where  responsibility  rests  on  somebody.  If  any 
one  is  to  be  denied  the  required  food,  it  must  be 
the  grown  person,  who  has  finished  his  building 
projects,  and  not  the  boy,  whose  structure  is  now 
going  up  and  must  not  be  interfered  with. 

Even  though  his  appetite  remains  unperverted 
and  decides,  with  accuracy,  what  he  needs  at  a 
particular  time,  he  requires  the  assistance  of  ex- 
perienced people  to  keep  it  in  a  sound  and  trust- 
worthy condition  till  he  can  acquire  a  sufficient 
stock  of  knowledge  and  experience  to  keep  it  safe 
and  sane.  It  is  definitely  known  to  grown  people, 
though  not  to  him  till  he  is  taught  it,  that  tobacco 
and  alcohol  always  impair  the  functions  of  the 
body.  The  judges  of  our  juvenile  courts  say  that 
the  cigarette  fiend  is  a  hopeless  case. 

We  do  not  protect  our  boys  against  dangers 
from  appetite  as  we  should.  It  looks  big  to  chew 
and  smoke  and  it  appeals  to  a  boy's  unregulated 
vanity;  it  makes  him  seem  like  an  older  person 
and  that  appeals  to  his  passion  to  imitate  the 
older  boys.  As  well  poison  the  food  itself  as  the 
power  by  which  he  selects  and  judges  and  digests 
his  food. 

But  the  most  serious  fact  is  that  his  food  has 
so  much  to  do  with  his  mind  and  character. 
Chemical  changes  in  the  body,  due  to  food,  are 
paralleled  by  changes  in  his  emotions.  His  soul 


HIS  APPETITE  21 

throbs  to  his  heart-beats.  At  the  time  when  the 
physical  hungers  are  greatest,  the  mind  and  heart 
hungers  are  most  restless  and  eager.  As  the  ab- 
sorption of  food  increases  the  soul  gathers  love 
and  truth  and  all  the  elements  of  character  more 
rapidly.  The  two  processes  are  suggestively 
synchronous.  Character  takes  tone  from  its 
fleshly  home.  Food  seems  to  get  built  into  the 
mind  and  the  emotions. 

The  conversion  of  meat  into  man,  of  food  into 
feeling,  is  a  true  and  an  interesting  process  which 
we  might  well  wish  to  watch  closely.  Food  be- 
comes blood  and  blood  builds  bones  and  muscles 
and  nerves  and  brain  tissues,  and,  from  that 
physical  basis,  we  get  the  power  to  think  and  feel 
and  will  and  do.  So  thoughts  and  books  and 
pictures  and  statues  and  music  and  achievements 
come  from  that  food.  Longfellow  well  says: 
"He  that  drinks  wine  thinks  wine,  he  that  drinks 
beer  thinks  beer." 

The  boy  has  the  right,  then,  to  have  good  food 
and  enough  of  it  and  to  have  the  wise  oversight  of 
those  who  are  over  him.  Whatever  of  love-value 
and  thought-value  and  will-value  and  art-value  is 
in  food  he  must  be  taught  to  find,  and  to  release 
and  take  only  those  values  in  his  selection  and 
use  of  it. 

The  destruction  of  values  is  one  thing;  the 
utilisation  of  values  another.  When  one  takes 
in  liquor,  he  wasts  that  much  money,  besides  the 
injury  to  his  body.  The  values  of  the  food  may 


22  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

be  lost  by  too  rapid  eating.  Haste  and  nervous- 
ness lead  to  the  galloping  style  of  eating.  The 
boy  may  not  Fletcherise,  but  he  may  be  taught  to 
put  himself  into  his  eating,  which  is  next  in  im- 
portance to  putting  the  eatables  into  himself. 
He  should  chew  as  long  as  he  can  teach  himself 
to  enjoy  that  particular  mouthful.  Eating  is  an 
art  which  he  must  be  taught  as  he  is  taught  the 
art  of  painting,  or  bookkeeping,  or  printing,  or 
engineering. 


IV 

HIS   CURIOSITY 

THERE  is  a  time  when  the  "Boy  Question "  is 
yery  largely  a  matter  of  the  boy's  questions. 
And  that  is  no  small  matter.  He  conducts  what 
may  be  called  a  questionaire.  He  is  a  disciple  of 
Socrates.  It  is  a  continuous  affair,  with  no  recess 
or  vacation.  He  does  it  for  the  same  reason  that 
he  plays — he  can't  help  it.  When  he  finds  an  agi- 
tation going  on  in  his  brain  and  nerves  and  mus- 
cles and  bones,  and  all  of  them  telling  him  to  play, 
and  good  opportunities  for  play  all  around  him, 
what  else  can  he  do?  And  when  there  is  such  a 
noisy  agitation  in  his  soul  compelling  him  to  learn, 
with  so  many  things  to  look  into,  what  can  he  do 
but  ask  about  them?  The  mysteries  of  stars, 
suns,  moons,  snow  and  hail,  steam,  electricity, 
grey  hairs,  bald  heads,  and  a  million  other  things 
must  be  explained — and  on  the  spot. 

He  never  knows  that  he  sometimes  gets  himself 
disliked.  If  he  did  he  would  want  to  know  why, 
and  all  about  it.  He  is  not  "stuck  up,"  to  use  a 
phrase  that  he  will  understand  at  once,  but  enlists 
every  one  he  meets  as  a  co-laborer  in  his  pursuit 
of  knowledge,  reserving  his  father  for  special  co- 
operation during  the  latter 's  hours  of  rest.  He 

23 


24  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

is  not  partial  nor  dilatory,  but  takes  up  every 
matter  as  it  comes  for  immediate  investigation. 
He  works  rapidly  and  can  inquire  into  a  great 
variety  of  subjects  in  the  same  breath. 

He  has  to  ask  questions  in  order  to  give  his 
strenuous  grey  matter  something  to  do,  and  he 
needs  the  knowledge  that  he  seeks.  To  be  sure 
he  can  learn  by  looking,  but  he  can't  gather  in- 
formation that  way  quite  as  fast  as  he  can  store 
it  away  in  his  memory,  and  laying  things  in  store 
is  his  main  business.  Besides,  there  is  so  much 
to  learn  that  he  will  never  get  his  share  unless  he 
avails  himself  of  all  possible  assistance. 

And,  come  to  think  of  it,  what  else  are  the  other 
people  here  for  but  to  put  him  in  possession  of 
what  they  have?  By  and  by  he  will  be  able  to 
dispense  with  a  few  questions — not  "let  up,"  but 
only  slow  up — and  reason  out  certain  things  alone, 
but  not  yet;  for  the  activity  and  the  thirst  for 
knowledge  and  the  questions  begin  with  his  first 
words,  and  reason  will  not  take  up  the  task  till 
he  is  somewhat  older. 

You  may  say  that  from  three  to  thirteen,  he  is 
an  interrogation  mark.  During  that  time  he 
might  find  an  inviting  vocation  for  his  shining 
gifts  as  a  lawyer  to  conduct  cross-examinations, 
or  a  chief  of  police  to  preside  over  the  sweat  box 
and  administer  the  "third  degree." 

He  is  getting  discipline  and  knowledge,  and  he 
is  "getting  the  habit,"  which  is  better  still.  He 
is  preparing  to  get  along  without  asking  questions, 


HIS  CURIOSITY  25 

which  is  not  a  bad  thing.  His  active  mind  is  send- 
ing impressions  along  the  brain  cells  and  marking 
out  a  permanent  path  for  truth  to  travel,  and  he 
is  also  acquiring  the  material  which  reason  will 
use  some  day,  in  its  work. 

Even  at  the  worst  he  is  more  than  a  combination 
of  muddy  clothes,  noise  and  questions.  Besides 
the  good  he  is  getting  think  of  what  he  is  giving. 
Think  of  how  he  is  driving  his  father,  especially, 
down  into  his  own  inner  life  and  back  into  his  own 
boyhood's  history  to  learn  the  significance  of  all 
this  questioning,  thus  leading  him  to  wholesome 
introspection  and  inspiring  recollection,  and  mak- 
ing him  a  bright,  new,  up-to-date  man. 

Think  of  the  fine  intellectual  drill  he  is  taking 
his  father  through,  as  he  puts  to  him  questions 
that  would  puzzle  lawyers,  and  scientists,  and 
philosophers  and  theologians,  questions  which  his 
father  must  unravel  and  answer  sensibly.  And 
the  boy  always  knows  when  the  latter  is  talking 
sense,  even  though  the  question  may  not  be  much 
better  than  some  civil  service  questions.  When 
Artemus  Ward  wrote  his  grotesque  travesty  of 
the  list  of  life  insurance  questions,  he  was  prob- 
ably in  a  reminiscent  mood  and  was  reviving  an 
old  boyhood  trick:  "Are  you  male  or  female? 
If  so,  how  long  have  you  been  so?" 

Think  of  the  ready  market  the  boy  furnishes  for 
your  stores  of  knowledge,  when  perhaps  he  is  the 
only  living  being  who  would  listen  at  all.  An  at- 
tentive listener  like  him  is  not  picked  up  every 


26  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

day.  You  might  write  newspaper  articles  and 
whole  books  without  finding  the  hospitality  for 
your  ideas  that  a  boy  will  give  when  you  answer 
his  questions.  It  is  to  many  a  rare  chance  that 
may  never  come  again.  No  one  can  question  the 
educational  value  of  questions,  both  for  ques- 
tioner and  questioned.  To  suppress  them  is  to 
suppress  him ;  to  direct  and  answer  them  is  to  dis- 
cipline and  develop  him;  to  do  it  in  the  spirit  of 
co-operation  is  to  enter  into  a  sacred  partnership 
with  him. 

We  come  to  see  that  his  curiosity  is  the  divinely 
established  method  by  which  he  passes  from 
ignorance  to  knowledge,  from  weakness  to 
strength.  It  is  the  same  spirit  of  investigation 
that  will  lead  him  and  many  other  men  to  climb 
mountains,  explore  the  unknown  corners  of  the 
world,  torture  nature  until  she  reveals  her  secrets, 
and  make  contrivances  different  from  any  that 
have  been  known  heretofore.  The  boy 's  curiosity 
is  the  condition  of  the  man's  culture,  his  questions 
are  the  prelude  to  his  conquests,  his  dissatisfac- 
tions the  means  of  his  discipline. 

There  are  right  ways  to  meet  his  questions  and, 
first  of  all,  we  must  recognise  his  right  to  ask 
questions  and  to  receive  the  right  kind  of  answers. 
To  discourage  them  is  to  encourage  ignorance  and 
weaken  his  desire  for  knowledge.  To  refuse  to 
listen  to  them  is  to  refuse  to  learn  his  nature  and 
needs.  A  shrewd  parent  can  learn  more  from  a 
child's  questions  than  the  child  can  learn  from  his 


HIS  CURIOSITY  27 

answers.  Answers  require  truth  and  wisdom. 
The  opportunity  to  teach  and  train,  by  answering 
questions,  is  one  which  any  parent  may  covet. 

But  it  is  not  in  questions  alone  that  his  curiosity 
shows  itself.  It  prompts  the  boy  to  all  kinds  of 
destructiveness  simply  because  he  wants  to  see 
what  things  are  made  of.  His  toys  become  tire- 
some if  he  can  not  make  them  yield  that  desired 
knowledge.  A  clock  that  only  keeps  time  is  a  poor 
thing  to  him.  If  he  can  take  it  to  pieces  it  is  a 
good  clock,  even  though  he  never  gets  it  together 
again.  This  method  of  investigation,  by  dis- 
section, is  the  one  he  will  use  as  a  physician  or 
geologist  or  chemist  or  inventor ;  and  he  is  learn- 
ing how,  while  a  boy.  Every  boy  has  a  right  to 
toys  and  blocks  and  implements  that  he  can  in- 
vestigate in  that  way.  A  man  who  understands 
a  boy's  curiosity  and  knows  how  to  deal  with  it 
is  master  of  priceless  knowledge.  One  who  sup- 
presses those  questions  ought  to  be  suppressed; 
one  who  never  excites  them  must  be  abnormal. 

His  curiosity  holds  in  it  the  germs  of  reverence 
for  the  transcendent,  rulership  over  the  dependent 
and  fellowship  with  the  personalities  involved  in 
his  search  for  truth.  The  treatment  his  curiosity 
calls  forth  may  break  down  reverence  or  build  it 
up,  make  him  a  prince  or  a  puppet  in  the  realm 
into  which  his  curiosity  leads  him;  may  estab- 
lish him  in  the  friendship  of  the  eternal,  or  drive 
him  back  into  selfish  pauperism.  Every  answer- 
able question  ought  to  be  studied  out,  if  you  have 


28  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

not  an  answer  at  once,  but  it  will  also  prove  very 
wholesome  to  him  when  you  confess  your  igno- 
rance and  thereby  enter  into  comradeship  with 
him  in  the  search  for  truth. 


HIS  POWER   OF   IMITATION 

Two  indispensable  powers  possessed  by  the  boy 
are  imagination  and  imitation.  They  awake  early 
and  work  until  he  is  dead.  With  him  imitation  is 
not  limitation;  it  is  life  and  enlargement.  He  is 
like  the  chameleon  that  takes  its  hues  from  its 
environment. 

At  the  start  he  acts  on  blind  impulse,  automatic 
at  that,  as  he  swings  about  and  grasps  at  every- 
thing from  his  mother  to  the  moon.  From  ir- 
regular action  to  unconscious  imitation  is  an  easy 
and  unobserved  transition. 

Soon  he  gets  to  imitating  consciously  and  he 
never  stops.  Nature  was  wise  in  ordaining  it  so. 
That  is  the  way  he  grows,  for  imitation  is  ap- 
propriation. He  answers  your  smile  with  a  smile, 
your  frown  with  a  similar  frown,  your  love  with 
love,  your  hatred  with  hatred.  He  does  this  at 
first  without  knowing  it,  then  he  does  it  purposely, 
and  by  this  time  he  has  the  habit. 

He  walks  because  he  sees  other  folks  walking, 
likes  the  idea  and  takes  over  the  diversion.  And 
the  risks  he  runs  are  numerous  and  various.  If 
he  were  reared  among  animals  he  would  probably 
walk  on  all  fours  and  chatter  or  grunt  as  they  do, 

29 


30  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

and  perhaps  consider  his  occasional  impulses  to 
stand  on  his  pastern  joints  as  a  strange  discom- 
fort. When  he  is  brought  up  entirely  with  grown 
up  people  he  is  old  while  young — a  grown  up  be- 
fore he  grows  up.  He  plays  because — no,  I  sup- 
pose he  would  play  anyhow;  but  he  plays  in  the 
way  he  does  because  he  sees  others  play  that  way. 

He  is  a  reflector  long  before  the  reflective  a^e, 
the  tones  and  sentiments  and  manners  of  the 
people  around  him  finding  an  embodiment  in  him 
and  a  second  expression  by  him.  Not  that  he  is 
just  an  echo.  He  knows  how  to  wake  the  echoes 
himself;  but  he  also  knows  how  to  echo  and  he 
does  it.  He  never  went  to  a  circus  in  his  life  with- 
out wanting  to  get  up  one  at  home,  and  doing  it. 
Attending  fires  is  one  of  the  solemn  duties  of  his 
boyhood,  and,  if  domestic  sentiment  was  not  too 
strong  against  it,  he  would  have  them  at  home; 
though  attending  to  the  fire  is  not  in  his  line.  He 
learns  to  swim  by  watching  others,  and  the  frogs. 
He  plays  church  and  school ;  sings  and  scolds ;  yells 
at  the  smaller  members  of  the  family  or  com- 
munity in  the  same  terms  and  tones  that  were  used 
on  him — all  a  matter  of  reflection. 

He  is  not  contented  that  he  has  only  imitation. 
He  has  initiative.  He  is  original.  It  was  a  boy 
that  saw  the  steam  lift  the  lid  off  his  mother's  tea- 
kettle and  got  up  an  imitation  that  has  lifted  the 
life  of  mankind.  If  we  could  trace  the  history  of 
aeronautics,  we  would  find  that  some  boy  started 
that  form  of  enterprise  by  making  a  descent  from 


HIS  POWEE  OF  IMITATION  31 

the  barn  loft  with  his  father's  umbrella  for  a 
parachute,  or  that  some  man  did  it  with  the  gift 
of  imitation  cultivated  so  carefully  in  boyhood. 
He  learns  to  apply  the  most  recondite  knowledge 
to  the  most  common  conditions. 

There  are  some  things  a  boy  naturally  imitates, 
with  more  or  less  ease,  simply  because  he  is  a  boy ; 
then  there  are  some  things  he  imitates  at  one 
stage  and  others  at  another. 

There  may  be  an  unspoiled,  but  not  an  unsoiled, 
simplicity  of  boyhood.  The  dainty  little  girl  will 
keep  her  white  dress  and  pink  ribbons  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  angels  whom  she  imitates;  while 
the  dirty  little  boy  will  emerge  from  the  puddle 
where  he  has  had  a  good  time  with  his  friends,  the 
pigs,  whom  he  imitates  when  he  can. 

His  words  betray  him — odd  words,  big  words, 
long  words,  lurid  words.  They  show  their  origin. 
The  waiting  boy  in  the  reception-room  of  a  wealthy 
and  cultured  Bostonian's  office  made  me  feel  that 
I  was  talking  to  my  host  himself.  Words  that 
express  strong  feeling  in  a  picturesque,  acrid,  or 
even  a  profane  way,  appeal  to  him.  Slang  is  his 
favourite  vehicle  of  expression.  He  remembers 
all  he  hears  and  can  reproduce  it.  It  is  the  ob- 
jective, the  active,  the  large  that  wins  him,  at  first. 

He  imitates  actions  as  well  as  words;  gathers 
the  ideals  as  well  as  actions ;  most  of  all  feels  the 
spell  of  compelling  personalities.  Those  two  lads, 
sons  of  Jack  Abernethy,  United  States  Marshal 
for  Oklahoma,  who  rode  horseback  all  the  way 


32  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

from  Oklahoma  to  New  York  to  serve  on  the  re- 
ception committee  when  Eoosevelt  was  welcomed 
home  from  Africa,  enjoyed  that  trip  far  more 
than  if  they  had  gone  in  a  palace  car,  because  their 
adored  " Teddy"  and  their  father  were  Bough 
Eiders.  The  boy  is  a  hero  worshipper  from  the 
beginning.  It  is  the  man  he  imitates.  He  would 
rather  be  like  some  fascinating  man  than  be  an 
angel — for  a  while  at  least. 

In  the  first  stage,  from  one  to  six  years,  his  life 
is  automatic  and  impulsive,  and  what  appeals  to 
those  impulses  he  imitates.  During  the  next  stage 
the  impulse  gets  differentiated.  He  is  a  natural 
insurgent  from  eight  to  twelve.  The  strain  on 
him  is  terrific  as  his  habits  get  formed.  It  must 
have  been  of  the  boy  of  this  stage  that  Carlyle 
said  ought  to  be  brought  up  in  a  barrel  and  fed 
through  the  bunghole.  But  it  was  only  Carlyle 
who  said  it.  He  never  had  a  boy,  though  his 
father  had.  In  this  second  stage  he  is  forming 
habits. 

In  the  first  stage  he  imitates  actions;  in  the 
second  stage,  words  and  the  habits  of  mind  back 
of  the  words ;  in  the  third  stage,  though  he  imitates 
less,  he  copies  after  ideals  and  social  habits. 

Back  of  all  this  imitation  there  is  the  hunger  and 
thirst  for  completing  himself,  creative  self-expres- 
sion, though  he  doesn't  know  what  it  is.  It  shows 
the  truth  of  the  old  saying  that  example  is  better 
than  precept,  because  it  contains  both  and  makes 
them  practical.  It  is  better  than  punishment. 


HIS  POWER  OF  IMITATION          33 

Imitation  is  always  in  the  direction  of  his  in- 
terests and  those  interests  are  such  as  appeal  to 
his  activities.  He  likes  the  concrete,  the  simple. 
He  thinks  of  God's  activities  rather  than  his  at- 
tributes, of  His  powers  rather  than  His  moral 
perfections.  He  enjoys  nature  not  as  the  scien- 
tist, but  as  the  hunter,  the  farmer,  the  traveller  or 
the  stockman  does.  He  gets  all  the  geology  and 
ornithology  he  wants  by  throwing  rocks  and  find- 
ing birds'  nests.  He  goes  on  the  principle,  held 
unconsciously,  that  ideas  are  made  for  embodi- 
ment in  actions ;  grown  people  may  express  theirs 
in  words,*  but  works  alone  are  capable  of  fitly 
speaking  his  own.  So  when  he  finds  any  action 
he  likes,  he  imitates  it,  though  he  reproduces 
words  and  tones  and  habits  of  speech  as  well. 
This  is  also  a  divine  arrangement  for  his  growth. 
The  result  of  imitation  is  enlargement  of  life  and 
habit.  Thus  he  comes  to  the  mastery  of  him- 
self. 

If  those  in  charge  of  him  are  wise  they  will: 
1.  Take  advantage  of  his  impulse  to  imitate  and 
give  him  the  play  that  will  develop  it. 

2.  In  his  next  stage  they  will  make  the  play 
more    or   less   dramatic,    always    accurate;   will 
awaken  interest  as  well  as  impulse;  attract,  draw, 
rather  than  drive;  aim  to  give  him  what  is  worth 
imitating  in  thought,  words  and  character. 

3.  In  the  latter  stage  give  him  comradeship  that 
will  develop  his  character.    Almost  every  crim- 
inal could  have  been  saved  from  crime  by  a  proper 


34  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

appeal  to  his  instinct  of  imitation.    Words,  ac- 
tions, people,  must  be  worthy  of  imitation. 

Thus  he  can  be  led  from  rocks  and  birds'  nests 
to  geology  and  ornithology;  from  impulse  to 
habit;  from  imitation  to  origination;  from  build- 
ing houses  with  blocks  to  building  blocks  of  houses 
and  creating  and  conducting  business  enterprises. 


VI 

HIS  IMAGINATION 

"SEEING  things  at  night,"  is  tame  compared 
with  the  way  a  boy  sees  things  with  his  eyes  wide 
open,  things  that  are  not  so,  at  that.  At  the  time 
he  is  four  or  five  years  old  the  power  to  see  the 
unseen,  to  make  images  of  invisible  things,  is  ac- 
tive and  it  is  riotous  when  he  gets  into  his  teens. 

It  is  the  same  power  we  have,  only  it  is  about 
all  he  does  have,  while  we  are  now,  at  least  some 
of  us  are,  or  are  supposed  to  be,  in  possession  of 
judgment,  reason  and  some  other  faculties  that 
have  gotten  active  enough  to  make  us  forget  our 
imagination  and  in  some  instances  to  give  up  the 
image-making  business  altogether.  But,  in  the 
boy,  the  imagination  is  one  of  the  first  faculties 
awake  and  it  is  hard  at  work  when  reason  and  the 
will  and  judgment  and  conscience  first  open  their 
eyes.  Up  to  that  time  it  works  without  their  as- 
sistance and  is  untethered.  Two  facts  about  him 
seem  to  contradict  each  other.  One  is  that  his 
acute  senses  make  very  accurate  observations  of 
real  things ;  the  other,  that  his  active  imagination 
knows  no  bounds. 

It  is  not  hard  work,  either;  it  does  itself.  In 
that  case  we  call  it  passive  imagination.  There 

35 


36  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

is  something  in  him  like  wings  and  they  insist  on 
flying.  He  does  not  yet  care  where  they  take  him. 
So  they  flit  from  point  to  point,  as  they  will,  with- 
out restraint,  or  direction  from  reason  or  will. 
After  awhile  he  will  be  able  to  hold  that  sight  on 
an  object  as  long  as  he  wishes  and  his  imagination 
will  enter  on  a  new  phase.  At  first  the  things  he 
remembers  attract  him  most,  and  for  that  reason, 
some  have  called  it  mere  memory ;  yet  it  is  some- 
times more.  But  when  he  begins  to  take  charge 
of  it,  we  say  it  is  active  imagination.  And  per- 
haps that  is  where  we  can  appreciate  Binet's  re- 
mark that  it  is  "the  faculty  of  creating  groups  of 
images  which  do  not  correspond  to  any  external 
reality."  This  day-dreaming  is  not  wrong, 
either.  He  has  to  do  it,  whether  right  or  wrong, 
though  he  may  do  it  in  a  right  or  wrong  way. 

In  the  first  stage  he  is  always  turning  some- 
thing into  something  else  more  to  his  liking,  as 
when  little  Billie,  standing  by  the  post,  began  to 
turn  an  unseen  faucet  and  catch  unseen  soda 
water  in  his  real  cup,  making  the  fizz  with  his  lips, 
and  to  call  out:  "Come  on,  boys,  it's  my  treat;" 
everybody  saw  what  Billie  saw  and  drank  his  soda 
water,  till  they  came  to  Joe,  who  showed  he  was 
a  freak,  by  snarling  out:  "Naw;  you  ain't  got 
no  soda  water;  you  know  you  ain't."  He  changes 
toys  into  soldiers  and  has  them  fight  each  other, 
makes  his  sisters  fairies  and  another  little  girl  a 
queen.  He  says:  "I  am  a  coachman,"  and  he 
is  one.  One  minute  he  is  Theodore  Eoosevelt  at 


HIS  IMAGINATION  37 

the  head  of  his  Bough  Eiders,  and  the  next  minute 
the  same  dashing  leader,  charging  the  hippopot- 
ami in  Africa.  Henry  Mills  Alden  says  that 
genius  is  creative  imagination  and  ingenuity  is  its 
power  of  insight. 

At  times  it  makes  him  seem  only  a  precocious 
perverter  of  truth,  but  it  has  never  dawned  on  him 
that  he  is  anything  but  scientifically  accurate. 
With  that  magic  wand  he  transforms  deserts  into 
gardens,  fills  his  pockets  with  gold,  beholds  cats 
turn  into  tigers,  dogs  into  bears  and  himself  into 
a  prince  with  chariots  and  attendants  and  heroic 
halos,  or  into  anything  else  he  pleases.  He  was, 
without  doubt,  the  one  who  gave  points  to  Ibsen 
in  the  creation  of  Peer  Gynt.  Little  Ned's  imagi- 
nation worked  in  such  daring  ways  that  his  mother 
forbade  it,  like  those  good  men  who  forbade  the 
comet  coming  nearer  our  earth.  One  day,  in  spite 
of  warnings,  he  came  in  with:  "Oh,  Mamma,  I 
saw  a  great,  big,  black  bear  out  in  the  orchard. " 
Of  course  she  rebuked  him  and  then  inquired  of  his 
older  sister,  who  said  with  great  contempt  in  her 
voice:  "It  was  only  a  little  black  dog!"  She 
solemnly  took  him  upstairs  and  said:  "Now, 
Ned,  go  into  that  room,  kneel  down  and  tell  God 
how  naughty  you  were  and  ask  him  to  forgive 
you." 

He  cheerfully  went  in  and  presently  came  out 
with  a  smiling  face.  "And  did  you  tell  God  and 
ask  him  to  forgive  you?"  "Yes,  and,  Mamma,  he 
said  the  first  time  he  saw  that  dog,  he  thought  it 


38  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

was  a  bear,  too."  That  was  when  Ned  was  very 
small,  before  he  was  eight  years  old  and  he  lived 
in  a  world  of  make-believe.  His  mother  may  have 
spoiled  him ;  she  may  have  explained  to  him  that 
it  was  "play,"  and  thereby  saved  him. 

He  may  even  go  so  far  as  to  transform  himself 
into  another  person — say  the  king  of  England,  or 
Mr.  Eockef  eller,  or  Capt.  Kidd,  or  an  Indian  Chief. 
He  and  his  chum  have  been  known  to  exchange 
personalities  in  a  way  that  was  quite  real.  In  play 
it  is  one  of  the  easiest  things  for  him  to  become 
an  Indian.  "When  he  came  in,  the  other  evening, 
from  play,  muttering:  "S 'blood!  I  have  thee!! 
Unhand  me,  villain!!!"  you  knew  what  had  been 
going  on.  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  at  twelve,  after 
reading  Eoman  history,  used  to  fancy  himself  the 
Emperor  of  Constantinople  and  devoted  hours  at 
a  time  to  his  arduous  administrative  duties.  Ado- 
escence  is  the  golden  age  of  the  imagination.  That 
is  what  makes  prodigies. 

After  he  is  seven  or  eight,  he  sees  things  more 
in  groups  and  connections;  and  still  later,  in  his 
teens,  his  reason  and  purpose  take  charge  of  the 
aerial  thing.  Sometimes  people  succeed  in  killing 
it  and,  in  that  case,  he  is  dead  from  that  time  on. 
The  reason  the  Wrights  and  Curtiss  and  Hamilton 
and  the  other  flyers  can  navigate  the  air  is  that 
they  have  been  doing  it  in  imagination,  for  a  long 
time.  So  it  is  the  magical  power  that  begins, 
when  he  is  very  young,  and  stays  with  him  till  he 
dies,  or  till  his  heart  dies.  It  is  his  Aladdin's 


HIS  IMAGINATION  39 

lamp  whose  rays  disclose  all  he  wishes  and  changes 
stones  into  crystals,  his  "Fortunatus'  purse  that 
holds  the  treasures  of  the  universe. " 

It  is  the  mother  of  his  mirth,  the  spring  of  his 
smiles.  It  is  closely  and  causally  related  to  a  sav- 
ing sense  of  humour.  That  is  why  a  boy  in  Kan- 
sas City  rose  from  his  seat  in  a  crowded  street  car 
when  a  fat  woman  entered  and  said :  * '  Gentlemen, 
I  will  be  one  of  three  to  get  up  and  give  this  lady 
a  seat. "  Even  his  unconscious  humour  flows  from 
this  source,  as  when  the  teacher  said:  "Tommy, 
why  do  you  think  I  scold  so  much?"  "  'Cause 
you  get  kind  o'  fretful  teachin'  school,  I  s'pose," 
was  his  honest  reply. 

There  is  no  other  way  to  explain  how  he  can  do 
so  much — he  sees  it  beforehand.  Mr.  Ferris  was 
told  that,  by  the  laws  of  mechanics,  no  such  wheel 
was  possible,  but  after  long  study,  he  suddenly 
saw  that  wheel,  with  his  mind's  eye,  as  he  sat  in  a 
restaurant  in  Chicago;  and  then  building  it  was 
the  easiest  part  of  it  all.  Von  Moltke  was  in  bed 
when  the  word  came  that  France  had  declared  war 
and  he  quietly  looked  in  a  certain  pigeon-hole  for 
several  telegrams  and  said  "Send  them."  Then 
he  went  to  sleep  again.  He  had  foreseen  it  all 
and  had  every  plan  made. 

Imagination  gives  wings  to  his  hope,  feet  to  his 
reason,  force  to  his  decisions  and  vividness  to  his 
memory.  It  furnishes  him  invisible  armour  and 
victorious  arms  for  his  battle  against  the  false  and 
vicious  and  vulgar ;  for  he  can  picture  to  himself 


40  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

the  ideal,  true  and  virtuous  and  good  and  then 
make  them  real.  It  enables  him  to  secure  control 
of  himself  at  the  time  when  he  is  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  his  own  volatile  and  mysterious  pow- 
ers, for  he  can  be  made  to  see  the  vast  benefits  to 
come  from  such  self-control. 

That  is  one  reason  why  he  enjoys  the  present  so 
much  and  anticipates  the  future  so  eagerly — he 
sees  so  much  in  them.  And  it  may  be  added,  that 
is  the  reason  he  can  endure  the  present  when  older 
people  treat  him  so  unjustly  on  the  ground  that  he 
is  only  a  boy  and  it  makes  no  difference  how  he  is 
treated.  In  one  respect  he  is  like  Moses  who  en- 
dured because  he  saw  the  invisible. 

A  boy  has  that  profound  something  in  him  which1 
we  call  subconsciousness.  Imagination  is  the 
means  of  bringing  in  suggestions  from  the  outside 
and  taking  them  out  again  into  the  life.  After 
awhile  it  does  better  than  that — it  enables  him  to 
make  suggestions  to  himself,  and  we  call  that 
auto-suggestion. 

The  imagination  is  a  servant  willing  to  bring  in 
any  suggestion,  even  when  it  plays  havoc  with  the 
life.  Mrs.  Lamoreaux  tells  of  a  speaker  who, 
when  talking  to  a  Sunday-school  about  the  fixed- 
ness of  habits,  said  that  if  they  wrote  their  names 
in  the  cement  sidewalk  while  it  was  soft,  the  writ- 
ing would  last  as  long  as  the  walks.  Of  course 
the  boys  did  the  writing,  without  any  loss  of  time. 

When  he  is  very  young,  his  imagination  is  a 
great  convenience  to  the  boy's  parents,  for  he  can 


HIS  IMAGINATION  41 

have  the  benefit  of  boat  rides  and  car  rides  within 
doors,  with  the  aid  of  chairs  and  brooms.  Then 
when  the  reason  begins  to  unfold,  he  uses  it  with 
vividness.  When  his  memory  is  most  active,  from 
ten  to  fifteen,  the  imagination  fairly  riots.  When 
the  social  instincts  are  getting  into  control,  it 
makes  him  a  hero  worshipper  ready  for  altruistic 
adventure,  and  as  life  looms  up  mysterious  and 
fascinating,  it  gives  him  dreams  of  conquest. 

We  must  not  forget  that  what  he  sees  and  hears 
and  remembers  is  the  material  out  of  which  his 
imagination  forms  the  pictures  which  lure  him  on. 
We  have  heard  the  story  of  the  woman  who  told 
the  minister  that  her  husband  and  two  sons  were 
lost  at  sea  and  now  the  youngest  was  anxious  to 
become  a  sailor.  He  pointed  to  a  picture  on  the 
wall,  a  vessel  in  full  sail,  and  said :  ' '  That  picture 
will  drive  him  to  the  sea."  The  vicious  and  ob- 
scene furnish  material  which  fascinates  the  un- 
trained or  wayward  imagination. 

Our  power  is  also  our  weakness.  Our  imagi- 
nation is  more  powerful  now  than  it  ever  was 
before.  It  gives  greater  opportunity  for  mental 
and  moral  uncleanness  and  .enables  the  latter  to 
break  us  down  more  rapidly.  Much  of  the  injury 
to  boyhood  is  to  be  traced  to  an  outraged  imagina- 
tion. 

Personal  care  of  the  body  gets  aid  from  the  im- 
agination, as  the  latter  helps  him  fashion  an  ideal 
for  his  true  self  which  always  works  towards 
health  and  symmetry  and  artistic  excellence.  A 


42  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

good  imagination  is  good  hygiene.  Experience 
and  imagination  join  in  teaching  him  to  anticipate 
the  results  of  a  given  action  so  vividly  as  to  re- 
strain from  the  wrong  and  constrain  to  the  right. 
The  boy  looks  ahead.  He  will  need  that  power  in 
business,  if  he  is  a  bootblack,  or  a  merchant,  or  a 
lawyer,  or  a — well,  anything.  But  peril  must  be 
faced.  If  his  imagination  is  not  disciplined  and  if 
he  is  very  fond  of  success,  he  may  become  a  liar  of 
the  worst  kind. 

After  serving  boyhood  in  such  wholesome  fash- 
ion, this  power  abides  in  manhood  to  perform  an 
enlarged  function  in  transforming  ideas  instead  of 
things,  dealing  with  ideals  and  changing  the 
dreams  of  boyhood  into  the  deeds  of  manhood. 

To  check  it  is  to  turn  the  boy  into  a  dwarf  or  a 
deceitful  hypocrite.  To  direct  it  is  to  develop 
him ;  to  keep  it  chaste  is  to  protect  him.  Fortunate 
for  him  if  he  lives  in  the  country,  where  nature 
gives  him  vast  spaces  and  her  inspiring  fellow- 
ship. Happier  still  if  he  lives  in  a  home  where 
all  that  he  sees  and  hears  becomes  good  material 
for  the  house  of  life  which  his  imagination  is 
building. 

Hall  says:  "The  roots  of  play  lie  close  to 
those  of  creative  imagination  and  idealism. " 
Then  play  is  important.  In  adolescence  the  boy 
longs  for  comradeship  which  he  can  idealise,  and 
he  thereby  affords  his  parents  a  rare  chance. 
The  truths  given  to  him  in  literature  and  in  life 


HIS  IMAGINATION  43 

become  the  starting  points  of  his  idealising  im- 
age-making. Manual  activity  is  the  best  method 
of  balancing  and  sobering  his  power  of  imagina- 
tion. 


vn 

PAST   AND   FUTURE 

IP  some  of  the  scientists  are  right,  the  boy 
had  the  same  physical  start  as  other  animals,  but 
has  travelled  farther  and  somewhere,  on  the  way, 
a  new  power  has  got  into  him  and  made  a  differ- 
ence as  wide  as  the  universe  between  him  and 
them.  They  also  tell  us  that  there  are  many 
remnants  left  in  him,  of  former  stages  of  life, 
like  scaffolding  left  around  a  building  after  it  is 
completed,  and  that  he  is  a  sort  of  recapitulation 
of  all  those  stages;  they  say,  also,  that  the  stages 
of  his  moral,  mental  and  religious  growth  corre- 
spond to  the  stages  of  growth  which  the  race  has 
made.  But  upon  that  point  we  need  not  linger, 
for  it  is  only  an  unproven  theory;  observation 
shows,  however,  that  he  grows  through  stages 
which  are  as  interesting  as  they  are  exciting. 

We  know  that  while  it  was  divinely  arranged 
that  he  should  have  a  physical  origin  and  should 
bear  a  necessary  likeness  to  his  ancestors,  a  re- 
sponsible and  epoch-making  ancestor  of  his  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  in  his  moral  nature, 
and  though  there  has  been  a  break  in  the  image, 
he  is  a  descendant  of  that  ancestor  and  still  shows 
traces  of  the  descent.  Like  produces  like,  even 

44 


PAST  AND  FUTURE  45 

though  there  is  some  personal  unlikeness.  His 
heavenly  origin  is  not  to  be  forgotten.  His  body 
is  not  only  divinely  fashioned,  but  divinely  fur- 
nished with  its  occupant,  whether  he  is  good  or 
bad. 

His  origin  in  God  must  be  made  a  distinct  con- 
sciousness with  him,  as  soon  as  possible.  He 
should  learn  that  his  body  is  made  from  matter 
which  God  created,  and  according  to  a  pattern 
which  He  devised  and  worked  out,  whatever  the 
physical  agencies  employed  in  the  reproduction  of 
the  pattern;  that  his  spirit  is  a  reproduction, 
though  a  distorted  one,  of  God's  image.  That  is 
the  thrilling  truth  about  him  and  for  him,  a  truth 
of  which  he  must  be  put  in  possession,  so  as  to 
make  it  vital  and  constructive  in  his  life.  It  can 
be  taught  in  simple,  untechnical  statements  and  in 
the  form  of  life,  the  life  of  those  who  show  that 
they  have  learned  that  same  truth  and  are  living 
it. 

I  have  been  speaking  of  general  human  heredity. 
His  personal  traits,  which  make  him  the  kind  of  a 
boy  he  is,  are  due  to  the  kind  of  ancestors  he  has. 
Heredity  is  a  great,  serious,  sometimes  comical, 
but  oftener,  tragical,  force  with  him.  He  is  more 
apt  to  be  like  his  immediate  ancestors,  yet,  some- 
times, by  a  curious  kind  of  perversity,  he  runs 
back  into  the  generations  and  selects  some  ridicu- 
lous, or  contemptible,  trait  and  builds  the  freak- 
ish thing  into  the  house  of  his  life.  That  ancestor, 
or  kinsman,  may  have  been  a  pirate  or  a  horse 


46  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUBS 

thief,  who  ought  to  have  been  hung  long  before 
he  persuaded  some  woman  to  marry  him.  "Ata- 
vism" is  the  word  which  tells  that  a  boy  has  run 
back  to  get  his  traits.  No  one  knows  when  his 
child  will  do  that  foolish  thing.  The  laws  of  hered- 
ity work  in  unusual  ways  at  times.  Fifty  years 
ago  an  old  monk — Mendel  of  Brun — got  to  study- 
ing this  matter  of  heredity  and  got  up  a  theory 
which,  his  followers  have  thought,  explains  the 
method  of  transmitting  traits.  But  the  simple 
fact  is  that  a  boy  can't  afford  to  have  bad  ances- 
tors. 

As  a  general  thing,  as  already  stated,  the  boy 
gets  his  traits  from  the  nearest  generation  and 
that  generation  constitutes  his  environment  as  well 
as  his  heredity.  His  parents  should  be  able  to 
endow  him  with  the  very  qualities  he  will  need 
all  his  life  and  should  see  that  he  uses  them ;  if 
not,  they  have  no  right  to  undertake  to  endow 
him  at  all,  no  right  to  undertake  him.  As  he  has 
to  take  what  they  give  him,  they  are  the  ones  to 
whom  I  am  most  emphatically  speaking.  An- 
other thing  to  be  noted  is  that  he  is  a  blend,  which 
makes  a  new  type,  a  product  resulting  from  the 
union  of  two  streams  of  ancestral  traits,  and  he 
is  different  from  the  product  of  any  other  similar 
union  in  the  history  of  the  race. 

So  there  are  some  unchosen  factors  working  in 
the  production  of  the  boy,  many  and  mighty  and 
mystifying — his  ancestors,  remote  and  immediate, 
his  place  of  birth  and  residence,  his  schools  and 


PAST  AND  FUTUKE  47 

companions,  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  lives.  He 
cannot  choose  his  parents,  though  I  know  some 
boys  who  must  regret,  to  their  dying  day,  that  they 
didn't  have  that  privilege.  He  has  to  take  the 
kind  of  eyes,  nose,  teeth,  chin,  ears  and  feet  they 
give  him.  You  will  not  find  one  boy  in  a  thousand 
who  has  not  spent  valuable  time  wishing  his  nose 
were  of  a  different  variety,  or  his  lip  not  so  long, 
or  his  feet  not  so  ambitious.  Even  before  girls 
get  mixed  up  in  his  vision  he  is  sure  to  utilise  the 
mirror  in  making  careful  investigation  of  his  de- 
fects. 

The  community  in  which  he  is  reared  is  not  of 
his  choosing  and  is  regarded  as  not  of  his  con- 
cern, though  many  a  boy  is  ruined  by  it.  When 
their  parents  died  Tom  was  put  into  one  family, 
Joe  into  another.  Tom  became  a  credit  to  the 
memory  of  his  noble  father;  Joe  was  poisoned  to 
the  tips  of  his  soul  and  life,  poisoned  forever  by 
his  environment. 

A  boy's  past  often  dominates  his  future.  At- 
mosphere does  it,  and  that  is  prepared  for  him. 
It  may  be  heavy  with  unbearable  burdens  and  lack 
of  appreciation;  or  fetid  with  moral  pollution;  or 
too  rare  with  adulation  and  false  pleasures;  or 
languid  with  enervating  luxury ;  or  poisoned  with 
hypocrisy  and  pretence.  The  atmosphere  sur- 
rounding the  earth  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  exhala- 
tion of  the  earth  itself,  for  it  has  in  it  some  of  the 
very  elements  found  in  the  earth,  nitrogen,  oxygen, 
hydrogen.  The  atmosphere  of  the  home  is  a  com- 


48  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

posite  of  the  exhaled  characters  of  those  who 
make  the  home. 

All  the  difference  between  winter  and  summer 
is  a  matter  of  atmosphere.  The  streams  were  all 
locked  beneath  their  walls  of  ice,  the  hills  were 
sombre,  the  forests  sere;  but  after  a  few  weeks, 
the  streams  took  up  their  springtime  melody,  the 
hills  were  "with  verdure  clad"  and  field  and  for- 
est were  beautiful  and  brilliant  with  life  itself. 
And  the  difference  was  a  matter  of  atmosphere. 
Allied  with  this  is  the  power  of  place.  The  poets 
of  Greece  were  born,  for  the  most  part,  where  "the 
mountains  look  on  Marathon  and  Marathon  looks 
on  the  sea."  Most  of  the  poets  of  England  were 
reared  there  where  the  sky  bends  with  such  ten- 
derness over  the  earth  and  reflects  itself  in  the 
lakes  that  are  set  like  mirrors  in  the  framework 
of  hill  and  mountain.  Our  own  poets,  as  a  rule, 
came  from  where  the  mountains  lifted  them  to  a 
purer  air  and  a  broader  view,  or  where  the  sea  is 
ever  "rolling  its  profound,  eternal  base  through 
nature's  anthem,"  or  breathing  upon  them  like  an 
inspiring  spirit.  The  atmosphere  exhaled  from 
the  boy's  home,  should  contain  love  and  wisdom 
and  authority,  so  blended  as  to  make  it  pure  like 
that  which  billows  around  the  throne  of  God. 
His  atmosphere  is  not  only  unchosen  by  him  but 
he  seldom  chooses  his  companions  or  teachers, 
they  are  thrust  upon  him.  Sometimes  those  in 
authority  try  to  thrust  his  profession  upon  him; 


PAST  AND  FUTUKE  49 

they  even  attempt  the  daring  sacrilege  of  select- 
ing a  wife  for  him. 

We  may  know  his  past,  personal  and  ancestral, 
but  no  one  knows  his  future.  His  relation  to  his 
past  is  one  of  approvals,  or  repudiations.  He  has 
the  power  to  turn  against  an  unfortunate  heredity 
and  environment;  he  has  the  power  to  choose  all 
that  is  noble  in  the  past  and  present,  and  his  fu- 
ture is  largely  shaped  by  his  attitude  toward  his 
past.  But  nobody  knows  just  what  he  will  do 
with  it  all  till  after  he  has  done  it.  He  is  the  most 
uncertain  of  creatures.  You  can  never  tell  his 
future  from  the  way  he  looks  and  acts  nor  from 
the  way  his  ancestors  looked  and  acted.  You  can 
tell  how  a  fox  or  a  bee  or  a  mule  will  turn  out,  but 
not  a  boy.  He  is  related  to  the  dust  beneath  his 
feet,  to  the  stars  aflame  in  the  sky,  to  human  life 
in  all  its  phases  of  good  and  ill,  in  all  its  history, 
past,  present  and  to  come,  to  the  God  above  who 
made  him ;  and  just  how  he  turns  out  will  depend 
on  how  he  gets  himself  related  to  this  multiform 
environment  of  his.  He  has  the  divine  gift  of 
choice,  but  no  one  can  forecast  or  force  it.  He 
was  made  that  he  might  become  perfect;  will  he 
even  care  enough  about  it  to  try  the  stupendous 
task  I  He  has  the  power  of  imagination  to  pic- 
ture; will  to  purpose  and  perform;  imitation  to 
conform  to  the  highest;  capacity  to  receive  new 
force  and  to  use  the  greatest  power  of  all,  per- 
sonal force.  He  has  kindred  and  friends  who  love 


50  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

him  enough  to  supply  him  with  what  he  needs.  He 
must  determine  his  future  and  they  often  decide 
what  he  will  determine.  His  unchosen  factors 
may  be  bad,  but  he  may  choose  a  new  environment 
and  a  heavenly  ancestry,  provided  he  is  rightly^ 
aided. 


VIII 

HIS   ILLS  AND   EPOCHS 

MUMPS  and  bumps,  ills  and  epochs,  await  him. 
The  first  mentioned  is  only  one  of  many  diseases 
disputing  his  path  or  dogging  his  unsuspecting 
footsteps.  Millions  of  microbes  infest  the  air  and 
certain  squads  seem  to  be  detailed  to  concentrate 
on  him — the  microbes  of  mumps  and  measles  and 
chicken  pox  and  whooping  cough.  They  are  on 
his  trail  and  he  receives  them  all  with  juvenile  hos- 
pitality, or  escapes  through  the  vigilance  of  sleep- 
less guardians  and  through  no  precaution  of  his 
own.  Beginning  with  colic  and  croup,  he  loves  to 
range  the  whole  gamut  of  pathological  possibili- 
ties till  he  can  stand  on  the  summit  of  an  immunity 
which  they  no  longer  dare  invade. 

But  if  some  of  his  ills  are  preventable,  his 
epochs  are  experiences  from  which  no  vigilance  of 
parents,  or  physicians,  or  teachers  can  protect 
him.  Every  psychologist  in  our  country  and  in 
foreign  countries  has  said  so.  Older  people  know 
it  from  experience.  These  entertainments  along 
the  way  have  been  prepared  for  him  and  the  invi- 
tation to  him  is  mandatory. 

Each  of  those  epochs  is  a  time  when  some  new 
power  awakes  in  him,  or  develops  signally,  or  en- 

51 


52  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

ters  on  a  phase  of  special  activity.  He  is  never 
the  same  afterwards.  Over  the  falls  his  life 
widens  out  and  sometimes  deepens;  then  come 
other  falls  and  others  still,  till  at  last,  he  is  out  on 
the  broad  sea,  where  the  currents  of  life  are  in 
great  oceanic  movements.  Perhaps,  in  the  future, 
we  shall  be  able  to  prevent  a  majority  of  the  dis- 
eases that  now  seem  inevitable,  but  we  can't  keep 
him  from  his  epochs. 

He  never  knows  about  them  in  advance,  doesn't 
know  them  when  they  come,  doesn't  know  they 
have  come.  He  only  knows  he  wants  to  do  and  to 
have  certain  things.  It  would  be  difficult  to  give 
him  any  idea  of  their  real  meaning.  We  know 
them ;  we  read,  in  every  look  and  tone  of  his,  that 
he  is  passing  through  the  rapids;  we  know  what 
those  desires  and  expectations  of  his  mean.  He 
looks  forward  to  the  time  when  he  can  wear  long 
trousers,  play  the  fiddle,  drive  an  auto,  have  a  gun, 
shave  and  wear  whiskers,  and  sing  bass,  or  tenor, 
and  even  marry.  If  he  knew  everything  that  was 
to  happen  to  him,  he  might  drop  out  of  the  enter- 
prise before  he  has  time  to  win. 

Now  let  us  try  to  get  an  idea  of  each  of  his 
epochs  and  see  just  what  it  means ;  this  we  can  do 
by  studying  him  and  by  harking  back  to  our  own 
boyhood  days  for  verification. 

Three  general  periods  are  clearly  distinguish- 
able— infancy,  from  birth  to  six;  childhood,  from 
six  to  twelve ;  adolescence,  from  twelve  to  twenty- 
two,  or  maturity.  Then  there  are  little  turning 


HIS  ILLS  AND  EPOCHS  53 

points  within  these  periods,  so  that  we  can  say 
there  are,  at  least,  seven  stages  on  his  road  to 
manhood.  Their  bounds  can  be  fixed  only  in  a 
general  way,  for  we  know  that  one  boy  may  be 
seven  or  eight  years  in  reaching  the  six-year 
stage,  while  another  may  reach  it  in  five  years. 
Let  us  look  at  it  more  in  detail. 

First — Babyhood  proper,  from  birth  to  three 
years.  Several  clear  marks  are  discernible 
through  this  period.  Every  action  is  automatic, 
at  first.  Senses  gradually  connect  up  with  the 
outside  world;  sights  and  sounds  and  odours  at 
last  are  identified.  Imitation  becomes  the  reg- 
nant law;  the  babe  smiles  and  laughs  and  frowns 
in  answer  to  your  smiles  and  laughter  and  frowns. 
He  is  impatient,  or  loving,  as  you  are.  He  does  it 
automatically  and  you  furnish  the  idea.  Be  care- 
ful. It  is  a  golden  period  with  him.  Play  is  his 
chief  diversion,  but  it  is  automatic  and  self-cen- 
tred. Give  him  play;  give  him  something  worth 
imitating.  Control  of  him  is  necessary,  but  it  is 
not  difficult;  it  is  really  control  of  yourself. 

Second — Infancy,  from  three  to  six  or  seven. 
Along  about  seven,  he  is  gliding  over  the  first 
falls,  but,  unless  he  is  told,  he  will  not  know  what 
it  is,  perhaps  not  till  he  goes  off  to  college  and 
studies  psychology.  Imitation  is  still  the  chief 
Jaw  of  his  life,  play  his  chief  employment.  Play 
has  become  more  voluntary.  He  likes  other  chil- 
dren chiefly  because  he  can  play  with  them.  By 
and  by,  he  will  play  with  them  because  he  likes 


54  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

them.  The  dramatic  expression  of  himself  in  play 
is  normal.  He  acts  the  part  of  another  with  un- 
conscious success.  He  prefers  to  imitate 
grown-up  men,  especially  men  of  might  and  dar- 
ing. Without  hesitation,  he  takes  the  part  of  a 
soldier,  even  at  that  early  day,  though  not  lacking 
in  valorous  discretion.  "When  Pm  a  man  I'm 
going  to  be  a  soldier,  Mother,"  said  Tommie. 
"What,  and  be  killed  by  the  enemy?"  she  asked. 
"Oh,  well,  I  guess  I'll  be  the  enemy,"  was  his  dis- 
creet decision.  During  these  years  he  has  the 
same  two  needs,  at  a  different  stage  of  their 
growth,  plenty  of  play  and  something  worth  imi- 
tating, that  something  a  person. 

These  six  years  are  the  period  of  greatest  ac- 
tivity, due  to  rapid  expansion  of  his  physical  life 
and  his  gradual  discovery  of  the  world  into  which 
he  has  come.  The  result  of  all  this  physical  and 
emotional  action  is  a  set  of  habits  and  they  will 
be  good  habits,  if  he  is  fortunate  in  his  family  and 
friends. 

Third — Early  Childhood,  from  six  to  about 
nine.  He  has  just  finished  the  period  of  the  great- 
est physical  activity  of  his  whole  life  and  is  at 
the  absorptive  period.  He  absorbs  food  and 
love  and  ideas.  Play  gets  to  be  team  work,  be- 
cause he  is  nearing  the  social  era.  Conscience 
becomes  more  self-acting  and  he  wants  to  be  his 
own  keeper.  Imagination  has  been  at  work  all  the 
time,  creative  imagination,  seeing  things  that  are 
yet  to  be  and  building  a  dream  life  for  himself.  As 


HIS  ILLS  AND  EPOCHS  55 

well  as  I  can  remember,  from  my  own  experience, 
and  can  judge  from  a  certain  boy  whom  I  know 
quite  well,  I  think  the  image-making  power  comes 
on  the  field  of  action  in  infancy  and  becomes  very 
active  in  the  period  we  are  now  considering.  Mem- 
ory starts  on  its  most  active  career  at  ten.  By 
the  time  he  reaches  the  next  crisis  he  will  be  ready 
for  it,  provided  he  has  plenty  of  wholesome  food, 
frolic  and  fun,  is  not  embittered  by  mistreatment, 
or  confused  by  wrong  teaching;  and,  also,  pro- 
vided he  has  been  made  to  see  that  the  bad  in  him- 
self is  to  be  condemned  and  repudiated  as  if  it 
were  in  someone  else.  Make  him  play  according 
to  rule,  let  him  not  hear  nor  see  anything  that  his 
imagination  may  use  in  the  construction  of  an  un- 
chaste or  selfish  picture.  Keep  the  memory  free 
from  the  material  that  will  produce  bitterness. 

Fourth — Later  Childhood,  from  nine  to  twelve. 
That  is  the  time  when  his  perceptions  are  keenest. 
He  likes  to  get  away  from  the  house.  Play  be- 
comes team  work.  The  image-making  power  is 
very  active  then.  It  is  what  may  be  called  the 
visual  imagination.  He  needs  stories,  but  needs 
contact  with  nature  more  than  he  needs  stories. 
Dr.  Hall  truly  says  that "  our  urbanised,  hot-house 
life  tends  to  ripen  everything  before  its  time." 
We  must  give  him  room,  out-doors  and  in-doors. 
Motor  exercise  is  what  he  needs,  regular,  active 
and  under  good  control.  He  needs  a  higher  au- 
thority over  him,  definite  and  positive,  authority 
and  not  argument.  Plenty  of  hearty  play,  clean 


56  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

fun  and  a  good  ideal  living  before  him  will  make 
this  a  good  epoch. 

Fifth — Early  Adolescence,  from  twelve  to  six- 
teen. The  social  nature  awakes,  he  becomes  con- 
scious of  relationships.  Hidden  powers  and  pro- 
pensities come  into  his  consciousness;  will  power 
and  judgment  get  into  action  together.  Latent 
impulses  are  released.  Eeligious  feelings  become 
acute.  It  is  the  beginning  of  the  sex  life,  in  its 
ultimate  stages.  His  physical  growth  corre- 
sponds to  the  growth  in  his  mental  and  moral  na- 
ture. His  expansion  is  by  a  series  of  explosions 
that  seem  to  have  no  connection  with  each  other. 
The  social  instincts  are  not  only  awake,  but  they 
express  themselves  in  ways  that  surprise  him,  as 
well  as  others.  When  a  new  power  is  released  it 
comes  with  a  phiz  and  a  bang. 

He  is  apt  to  throw  up  the  bony  framework  and 
then  build  in,  as  they  do  in  building  a  sky-scraper. 
He  grows  by  jerks.  He  goes  off  on  a  summer 
visit  and  comes  back  a  man.  Eobert  Burdette,  re- 
turning home  from  a  trip  in  company  with  his  son, 
said  the  cars  ran  so  slowly  he  was  afraid  the  boy 
would  be  grown  before  he  could  get  him  home. 
He  is  arming  himself  for  the  fray,  at  twelve 
and  thirteen — acquiring  new  strength  in  back,  leg, 
hip,  shoulder,  jaw,  skull  and  thorax.  He 
is  vivacious.  His  nerves  are  unstable.  He 
is  awkward,  because  the  bones  have  outgrown 
the  muscles  and  the  latter  have  not  got  them 
under  control.  Nutrition  may  be  defective  and 


HIS  ILLS  AND  EPOCHS  57 

cause  bad  health  and  a  bad  disposition.  He 
does  not  know  how  to  express  himself.  He  hun- 
gers for  love  and  appreciation,  but  doesn't  know 
how  to  receive  it.  He  gets  out  of  himself  toward 
others.  His  intellect  becomes  inquisitive;  he  is 
becoming  a  member  of  the  race.  He  begins  to 
wonder  if  he  will  ever  have  a  moustache  and  he 
shaves  and  scrapes  for  it.  He  aspires  to  sing 
bass.  He  begins  to  think  that  perhaps,  after  all, 
girls  are  not  a  nuisance.  He  does  team  work  at 
play.  He  uses  slang.  Through  these  stages  he 
appreciates  all  the  kindly  attention  you  can  show 
him.  You  can  draw  him  by  his  heart  strings  when 
you  can't  draw  him  by  a  halter;  you  can  lead  him 
by  his  conscience  better  than  by  the  collar.  The 
hand  of  love  can  guide  the  new  wild  impulses  that 
have  come  into  action,  impulses  which,  unguided, 
may  sweep  him  a  wreck  upon  the  rocks. 

His  self-consciousness  is  more  or  less  confused. 
It  is  the  time  when  he  is  neither  a  boy  nor  a  man ; 
he  is  an  anomaly.  He  has  come  to  the  place 
where,  as  if  he  were  a  cable  car,  Nature  says,  "Let 
go"  and  again  "Take  hold,"  but  he  holds  on  when 
he  should  "let  go"  and  loses  his  hold  intermit- 
tently, when  he  should  "take  hold,"  firmly.  His 
hands  know  no  repose,  because  he  is  not  accus- 
tomed to  so  much  of  them.  His  voice  can  croak 
like  a  frog,  chirp  like  a  cricket  and  sing  like  an 
angel,  all  in  the  same  breath.  One  minute  it  goes 
rumbling  down  into  the  depths  of  the  earth  as  a 
bass,  the  next  it  goes  up  clear  out  of  sight  as  a 


58  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUKS 

tenor.  And  when  lie  smiles  he  seems  to  be  trying 
to  work  np  some  fresh  cuticle  that  has  grown  upon 
his  face  since  the  day  before;  if  he  succeeds  in 
working  it  all  up  he  doesn't  know  what  to  do  with 
it;  he  looks  as  if  he  would  like  to  swallow  the 
thing.  But  it  is  a  fetching  smile;  you  always 
smile  back  at  him  and  you  are  apt  to  say,  in  after 
days,  "His  bright  smile  haunts  me  still." 

He  is  not  an  unalloyed  comfort  to  the  home ;  and 
I  am  informed,  on  good  authority,  there  was  a  time 
like  that,  in  our  home,  some  years  ago.  He  talks 
through  his  nose,  he  wears  out  his  pants,  just 
exactly  where  you  don't  want  him  to  wear  them 
out.  If  his  older  sister  is  engaged  to  be  mar- 
ried, he  keeps  her  in  a  state  of  pectoral  pertur- 
bation. 

That  may  partially  explain  the  antipathy  which 
a  friend  of  mine  says  one  of  his  grandfathers  had 
for  him  when  he  was  a  boy.  His  Grandfather 
Stone  loved  Fred  and  thought  he  was  the  greatest 
thing  that  ever  happened,  and  when  the  lad  came 
to  see  him  gave  him  the  freedom  of  the  farm.  His 
Grandfather  Brooks  thought  Fred  was  an  inex- 
cusable impertinence  and  when  the  lad  came  out  to 
the  farm,  put  all  kinds  of  limitations  on  his  goings 
— wouldn't  even  allow  him  to  climb  up  in  the  apple 
tree  and  eat  green  apples,  in  the  leafy  month  of 
June.  Think  of  it!  Fred  says,  "They  were  both 
good  men,  have  both  died  and  have  gone  to  heaven 
and  when  the  time  comes  for  me  to  go,  too,  one  of 
the  first  persons  I  shall  want  to  see  is  Grandfather 


HIS  ILLS  AND  EPOCHS  59 

Stone;  but,  if  Grandfather  Brooks  ever  sees  me, 
he'll  simply  have  to  hunt  me  up." 

At  this  curious  stage  all  inharmonious  and 
evil  elements  seem  to  battle  for  his  possession; 
you  wonder  whether  he  is  to  become  a  savage  or  a 
seer,  a  bandit  or  a  knight-errant,  called  to  gallant 
endeavour,  in  behalf  of  the  unfortunate. 

Sixth — Maturing  Adolescence,  from  sixteen  on. 
The  brain  is  full  grown.  Intellect  takes  control. 
Emotions  are  restless.  Doubts  of  all  kinds  have 
their  day.  He  perceives  personal  relations  and 
they  are  becoming  fixed.  After  each  upheaval, 
life  becomes  more  related  and  reliable.  He  has  a 
saving  hold  on  everybody's  sympathy.  He  needs 
a  friend  who  has  had  a  similar  experience  and  has 
not  forgotten  it,  and  that  friend  ought  to  be  his 
father.  To  be  his  boy's  friend  is  that  father's 
main  business  in  life,  just  at  that  time.  He  must 
relate  his  boy's  explosions  to  each  other  and  to  the 
main  purposes  and  interests  of  life,  be  worthy 
of  his  completest  confidence  and,  instead  of  giv- 
ing him  lectures  on  how  to  do,  give  him  a  life  that 
does  it. 


IX 

HIS   SPOBTS 

HE  is  a  prodigious  toiler — at  play.  As  a  toiler 
he  is  also  at  times  a  terror.  Davie  lived,  as  a  lad, 
in  southern  California.  One  time  his  father  sent 
him  to  spend  a  while  with  the  lad's  uncle  in  north- 
ern California,  because,  down  there,  they  were  ex- 
pecting an  unexpected  visit — to  use  a  Hibernicism 
— from  an  earthquake  and  wanted  the  most  pre- 
cious things  out  of  the  reach  of  harm.  The  next 
week  came  a  telegram  from  uncle  saying :  '  *  Come 
and  get  your  boy  and  send  me  the  earthquake. " 
And  yet  he  was  just  playing.  It  was  pure  fun,  not 
a  bit  of  meanness  in  it.  In  truth,  his  sports  are 
the  most  serious  things  in  his  early  life ;  the  fun- 
nier and  louder  they  are  the  more  serious.  They 
rank  with  the  solemnities  and,  if  they  are  at  all 
what  they  ought  to  be,  their  value  is  beyond  calcu- 
lation. 

A  boy's  sports  are  different  from  a  girl's  or  a 
man's.  The  one  thing  he  must  have,  from  his 
early  days  till  he  is  permanently  settled  in  life,  is 
play — and  then  more  play.  Many  men  get  unset- 
tled again  for  lack  of  the  playful,  in  one  form  or 
another. 

Physically,  he  is  adapted  to  sport  and  devel- 

60 


HIS  SPOETS  61 

oped  by  it.  His  growing  muscles  and  bones  and 
his  unstable  nervous  system  require  play.  He  has 
several  million  neurons  already  and  each  one  is 
jumping — all  of  them  in  different  directions. 
" Can't  you  keep  still?"  asks  the  impatient  mother, 
when  she  ought  to  know  that  he  cannot.  He  is 
manufacturing  energy  so  fast  it  must  be  taken 
care  of  and  play  is  the  very  way  nature  has  de- 
vised for  that.  Play  gives  each  muscle  and  neu- 
ron a  chance,  and  trains  them  all  to  work  together. 
Nature  tells  him  to  turn  everything  into  play,  and 
he  is  always  glad  to  do  anything  that  can  be  thrown 
into  that  form  of  activity.  It  does  not  always 
mean  fun.  It  may  be  dramatic  and  entirely  seri- 
ous; but  still  it  is  play.  No  boy  can  pass  by  an 
automobile  when  its  owner  is  absent,  without 
squeezing  the  honk  bulb.  It  is  the  ever  active 
spirit  of  sport  that  prompts  it. 

The  noise  with  which  he  conducts  his  sports  has 
the  same  element  of  value.  If  boys  had  to  play 
without  noise  they  would  die  of  tuberculosis.  The 
lion  roars  when  he  is  hungry ;  so  does  a  boy.  But 
the  boy  has  the  lion  beaten,  for  he  yells  in  sheer 
good  humour,  as  the  birds  sing.  The  noise  is  no 
more  disorderly  or  unnatural  than  the  hum  of  ma- 
chinery manufacturing  gum-shoes.  The  loudness 
of  his  activities  is  wholesome.  The  neurons  in  his 
lungs  need  exercise  as  well  as  those  in  his  legs. 

It  is  not  for  a  moment  claimed  by  him,  or  by 
any  one  of  his  anxious  friends,  that  play  is  not 
hard  work.  Digging  post  holes,  or  worming  to- 


62  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

bacco,  or  carrying  a  hod,  or  feeding  a  threshing 
machine,  or  driving  oxen,  or  selling  goods  from  a 
bargain  counter,  is  light  and  lithesome  work  as 
compared  with  the  labour  of  a  lad  at  play.  That 
is  where  most  of  the  fun  comes  from.  If  he  could 
be  induced  to  put  that  amount  of  physical  activity 
and  mental  absorption  and  emotional  rapture  and 
undefiled  conscience  into  some  well-planned  enter- 
prise he  could  achieve  wonders  and  make  fortunes. 
But  there  would  be  no  fun  in  that,  and,  besides,  it 
would  require  him  to  give  up  his  job  of  being  a 
boy. 

His  growing  muscles  and  bones  and  his  unstable 
nerves  give  us  the  only  form  of  perpetual  motion 
that  students  of  mechanics  can,  as  yet,  point  to 
with  confidence.  Play  is  the  particular  outlet  that 
nature  arranged  for  in  advance;  and  in  order  to 
make  sure  that  he  would  utilise  it,  he  was  given 
the  play  instinct,  self-operative  and  irrepressible, 
so  that  it  is  play  or  perish.  We  can  easily  see, 
then,  that  the  more  work  required  in  play  the  more 
nature  is  succeeding  with  her  fine  scheme  of  giv- 
ing his  energies  plenty  to  do,  and  the  boy  gets  all 
the  benefit  of  it.  Going  fishing  is  no  sinecure, 
what  with  cutting  poles  and  digging  bait  and  climb- 
ing over  banks  and  wading  into  the  water  at  criti- 
cal moments  and  carrying  home  the  heavy  catch 
of — colds  and  explanations.  Mowing  the  yard  is 
nothing  to  it,  but  that  is  undisguised  work. 

If,  as  has  been  said,  going  to  school  and  work 
generally  are  the  prose  of  his  life  and  play  is  its 


HIS  SPORTS  63 

poetry,  play  with  his  own  crowd  is  the  dramatic 
poetry,  play  with  his  opponents  the  epic  and  play 
with  his  sweetheart  is  the  lyric.  But  perhaps  he 
is  not  interested  in  this  analysis.  With  his  5,000,- 
000  cells  all  jumping  he  is  finding  poetry  in  explor- 
ing woods  and  caves,  digging  for  hidden  treasure, 
living  a  few  days  in  a  tent,  going  nutting,  climb- 
ing trees  in  order  to  survey  the  country  and  to 
hasten  the  coming  of  new  trousers,  collecting  speci- 
mens, coasting,  skating  and  playing  the  regulation 
games.  There  is  a  fine  poetic  touch  in  the  way 
he  makes  preparations  for  play  and  when  that  is 
done  at  inappropriate  times  and  places  it  is  often 
as  good  as  the  play  itself. 

Yet  the  chief  value  of  play  is  not  physical;  it  is 
mental  and  ethical  and  social  and  emotional.  It 
shows  what  is  in  a  boy ;  helps  to  correct  him ;  then 
discovers  great  truths  and  principles  to  him. 
Froebel  says :  ' i  The  plays  of  children  are  germi- 
nal leaves  of  all  later  life."  A  newspaper  re- 
ported the  case  of  a  boy  sent  to  the  penitentiary  at 
sixteen,  and  added,  "He  might  have  been  saved 
rom  that  career  if  he  had  been  helped  in  his  play. ' ' 
"Because  he  had  no  play  ground "  can  be  truly 
given  as  the  explanation  of  many  a  life  of  crime. 

He  expresses  all  of  himself  in  play.  The  psy- 
chical as  well  as  physical  seeks  that  form  of  ex- 
pression. His  emotions  are  first  manifested  in 
food-getting;  next  in  play.  His  whole  mind  gets 
into  it.  Imitation  and  imagination;  reason  and 
religion ;  love  and  hate ;  courage  and  comradeship 


64  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

— all  are  there.  From  seven  to  thirteen  he  learns 
to  co-ordinate  motion  and  emotion. 

He  learns  law,  not  alone  the  laws  of  the  game, 
but  the  great  law  of  cause  and  effect.  He  learns, 
perforce,  to  respect  the  rights  of  others.  Team 
work  establishes  social  fellowship.  He  learns  to 
accept  defeat  cheerfully  and  get  ready  for  the  next 
opportunity.  A  young  man  decided  he  wanted  to 
go  to  Princeton  when  he  saw  the  victorious  way 
the  college  eleven  accepted  defeat  at  the  hands  of 
the  Yale  football  team. 

Defeats  are  turned  into  achievements  and  ob- 
stacles into  opportunities,  by  such  a  spirit.  The 
skill  which  the  game  requires  he  always  acquires, 
training  all  his  powers  to  help  each  other  like 
soldiers  in  a  well-drilled  army.  Here,  then,  are 
three  great  qualities  disciplined  by  his  sports — 
fairness,  pluck  and  skill.  Into  the  gaining  of 
them  go  self-control,  especially  the  control  of  the 
temper,  defiance  of  temptation,  the  altruistic  sen- 
timents of  comradeship,  self-confidence,  and 
obedience  to  authoritative  leadership. 

Play  may  be  artistic  in  itself  and  may  promote 
the  various  art  aptitudes  of  boys;  music,  clay- 
moulding,  building  snow  men,  houses  and  fortifi- 
cations, playing  warfare — all  have  their  construct- 
ive value. 

Play  develops  his  muscles  first;  next,  his  skill; 
from  twelve  on,  it  trains  the  will  power  and  the 
social  sentiments.  Nature  has  graded  the  school 
just  right.  As  the  spirit  of  comradeship  rises  in 


HIS  SPORTS  65 

him,  he  enjoys  his  fellow  players  as  well  as  the 
play  itself,  sometimes  more. 

Both  play  and  talk  are  natural  and  pleasing  to 
him,  while  work  and  conversation  are  artificial 
and  irksome.  Skill  in  both  has  to  be  acquired 
and  sometimes  he  never  succeeds  in  completely 
mastering  them.  But  he  learns  them  both  easily 
and  eagerly  when  they  can  be  put  into  the  form 
of  play.  Most  boyhood  tasks  can  be  dramatised. 
Trimming  the  lawn  or  cutting  wood,  or  carrying 
in  coal,  can  be  made  competitive  and  thereby  play- 
ful. History  can  be  dramatised,  especially  where 
it  involves  war  and  heroic  adventure.  Imperson- 
ating Indians,  or  any  other  attractive  characters, 
is  always  a  pleasure  to  him.  He  can  like  what 
he  can  play.  He  plays  teacher,  doctor,  preacher, 
cowboy,  robber,  stage-driver,  with  great  success. 

Apparently  he  is  learning  mostly  how  to 
wrangle  and  yell  and  charge  his  opponents  with 
being  unfair,  and  is  cultivating  a  narrow,  class 
spirit,  as  fast  as  possible.  But  something  very 
encouraging  is  going  on.  He  is  learning  loyalty, 
not  to  himself  alone,  but  to  his  cause,  and  each 
year  his  cause  is  growing  larger,  till,  by  and  by, 
he  will  identify  himself  with  the  cause  of  man  as 
such,  and  he  will  be  loyal.  Obedience  to  the  laws 
of  the  game  is  embryo  obedience  to  the  laws  of 
the  state  and  the  laws  of  life. 

It  is  even  claimed  that  the  aesthetic  and  artistic 
sense  is  developed  in  play.  Play  is  constructive 
unless  it  is  brutal.  Progress  is  sometimes  an  anti- 


66  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

climax — quarterback,  halfback,  fullback,  hunch- 
back, the  latter  for  life.  But  grace  and  rhythm  of 
motion,  balance  and  proportion  of  schemes,  cour- 
tesy and  kindness  in  team  work — these  can  grow 
out  of  well-played  games.  In  these  games,  con- 
structed for  the  times,  he  is  growing  out  of  the 
crude  into  the  arts  of  civilisation. 

Luther  Gulick  says  that  children  seldom  play 
games  spontaneously  before  they  are  seven,  their 
sports  being  under  leaders ;  from  seven  to  twelve 
each  is  for  himself  and  against  the  rest;  after 
that,  it  is  team  work  and  out  of  doors.  "The 
plays  of  adolescence  are  socialistic,  demanding  the 
heathen  virtues  of  courage,  endurance,  self-con- 
trol, bravery,  loyalty,  enthusiasm." 

To  his  parents  or  guardians : 

1.  Co-operate  with  nature  in  letting  him  play 
all  he  can  and  co-operate  with  him  in  the  play 
itself,  so  far  as  possible. 

1  2.  Give  the  play  instinct  expression  in  sports 
that  develop  cleanness,  comradeship,  courage  and 
conscience. 

3.  Turn  the  play  into  service,  by  turning  service 
into  play. 

4.  Find  his  special  aptitudes  and  let  him  follow 
that  line  toward  his  vocation.     See  that  the  plays 
are  increasingly  intellectual  and  social.    We  are 
developing   a   large   number   of   winter    sports. 
There  is  room  for  originality  in  the  development 
of  plays,  especially  in  the  home  and  for  the  win- 
ter evenings. 


HIS  SPOETS  67 

A  closing  word  must  be  said  about  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  public,  especially  in  the  cities,  in  pro- 
viding suitable  playgrounds  for  children  and 
carefully  supervising  them.  It  is  the  best  pre- 
ventative  of  crime,  next  to  the  public  schools,  the 
city  can  use.  Plays  should  no  more  be  commer- 
cialised than  home  or  religion  or  schools.  It  is  a 
good  preventive  of  casualties.  We  have  statis- 
tics and  reason  for  the  assertion  that  public  bath- 
ing beaches  and  playgrounds  decrease  death  by, 
accident.  This  does  not  relieve  the  home  of  a 
similar  responsibility.  Parlour  furniture  and 
costly  dishes  can  never  serve  as  good  a  purpose 
as  some  apparatus  or  arrangement  for  physical 
culture  and  play;  nor  can  any  of  these  be  so  val- 
uable as  life  on  a  farm.  Jane  Addams  says  the 
stupid  experiment  of  organising  and  failing  to 
organise  play  brings  fine  revenge  of  injury  to  the 
civic  and  personal  life,  while  well-directed  play  is 
a  development  in  both  directions. 


HIS  EMPLOYMENTS 

His  sports  form  one  kind  of  exercise,  but  they 
are  not  just  the  kind  of  employment  I  have  in 
mind.  Some  of  his  employments  he  turns  into 
sports,  some  of  the  time;  but  usually  they  are 
work,  nothing  but  work. 

There  are  three  reasons  why  he  must  have  em- 
ployment, both  regular  and  special.  One  is  that 
he  gets  discipline  by  it;  in  industry,  in  skill  by 
the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  in  forethought, 
in  continuity  and  in  self-mastery.  Again,  that  is 
the  way  he  is  getting  ready  for  his  career,  for 
those  are  the  very  qualities  he  must  have  when 
he  gets  out  into  his  life  work;  and  he  must  get 
them  started  as  habits,  at  the  habit-making  time 
of  his  life.  Two  things  will  always  be  required 
of  him — character  and  efficiency;  and  he  is  get- 
ting a  large  part  of  them  by  means  of  his  work. 
The  third  reason  is  that  his  services  are  indis- 
pensable to  others,  especially  in  the  home,  even 
though  his  parents  are  rich  enough  to  hire  every- 
thing they  want  done.  A  servant  cannot  put  the 
spirit  of  a  son  into  his  work.  A  child  can  be  a 
partner.  Yet  the  work  he  does  is  more  important 
to  him  than  to  all  the  rest  of  the  family. 

68 


HIS  EMPLOYMENTS  69 

We  should  distinguish  two  groups  of  employ- 
ments— those  that  are  assigned  to  him  by  his  eld- 
ers and  those  that  he  initiates  and  carries  on 
himself;  both  are  valuable  beyond  the  power  of 
definitions  to  express. 

Hardships  and  obstacles  are  a  distinct  advan- 
tage to  him.  Two  mistakes  are  often  made.  On 
the  one  hand  so  much  may  be  done  for  him  and  so 
little  done  through  him  and  in  partnership  with 
him  that  he  may  grow  up  without  any  sense  of 
responsibility  to  anybody  for  anything;  on  the 
other  hand,  so  little  interest  may  be  taken  in  what 
he  is  compelled  to  do  that  his  work  may  seem  en- 
tirely unrelated  to  his  own  interests. 

In  most  of  our  modern  homes  there  seems  very 
little  left  for  a  boy  to  do.  The  chores  are  done 
by  machinery.  Happy  for  him  if  he  can  bring 
in  the  kindling,  or  fuel,  or  start  the  fire,  or  take 
care  of  the  furnace,  or  carry  out  ashes.  If  there 
are  no  sisters  in  the  home  to  make  the  beds  and 
sweep  the  floor  and  set  the  table  and  wash  the 
dishes,  he  can  take  over  those  jobs,  although  they 
are  not  exactly  in  his  line.  Also  happy  for  him, 
if  he  can  take  care  of  the  lawn  and  help  in  the 
garden.  The  manual  training  school  opens  up 
possibilities  in  the  line  of  artisanship  and  there 
he  can  follow  his  aptitudes.  And  speaking  of 
manual  training,  let  us  not  forget  the  part  that 
manual  labour  has  in  human  life.  The  hand  shows 
the  abysmal  difference  between  human  and  ani- 
mal life.  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  says  he  found  in 


70  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

the  United  States  census  reports  between  three 
and  four  hundred  occupations,  more  than  half  of 
which  require  manual  labour.  Each  tool  develops 
its  own  kind  of  skill  and  symmetry.  Pestalozzi 
was  right  in  saying,  "No  knowledge  without 
skill." 

Perhaps  the  boy  can  assist  his  father  on  the 
typewriter,  or  with  his  books,  or  in  the  office.  Of 
course,  if  he  lives  in  the  country,  where  every  boy 
ought  to  be  brought  up,  he  has  limitless  oppor- 
tunities for  regular  employment.  He  can  feed  the 
cows  and  drive  them  up  and  milk  them,  and  work 
in  the  garden,  and  plough  and  help  put  in  the  crop 
and  harvest  it.  His  tasks  may  be  varied  with 
playing  and  hunting  and  fishing  and  going  to  the 
store  and  to  the  neighbours  on  errands.  The 
horseback  work  on  the  farm  always  suits  his 
tastes  and  talents. 

He  can  turn  the  grindstone  and  salt  the  cows 
and  wait  on  everybody  who  feels  the  need  of  his 
humble  services,  from  his  parents  and  older  broth- 
ers and  sisters  to  the  servant  girl  and  the  hired 
hand.  One  boy  I  have  heard  of  didn't  want  to  go 
to  the  country  because  he  heard  they  had  thrash- 
ing machines  there  and  it  was  hard  enough  for 
him  when  the  thrashing  was  done  by  hand. 

Three  characteristics  of  his  work  are  essential. 
It  must  be  regular  and  definite.  Even  if  it  is  a 
medley  of  disconnected  chores,  each  must  have  its 
own  place  in  the  day's  schedule,  that  he  may  grow 
in  the  virtues  of  system  and  order. 


HIS  EMPLOYMENTS  71 

His  work  must  also  be  congenial,  as  far  as  it  is 
possible  to  make  it  so.  His  aptitudes  are  to  be 
studied  and  considered.  We  know  how  much  de- 
pends on  that.  As  far  as  it  can  be  made  so,  his 
work  should  be  in  the  lines  of  his  future  calling 
and  career.  Handel's  father  wanted  to  make  a 
lawyer  of  him  and  would  not  allow  him  to  do  some 
things  that  his  tastes  and  his  talents  fitted  him  to 
do.  Michael  Angelo's  father  wanted  to  put  him 
in  a  government  position.  They  tried  to  keep 
Watt  from  watching  the  tea  kettle  boil  and  to 
make  him  do  practical  things.  He  was  willing  to 
help  around  the  house,  if  they  would  only  allow 
him  to  study  the  steaming  kettle  part  of  the 
time. 

While  the  ideal  of  all  work  is  that  it  shall  be  so 
congenial  that  one  will  always  delight  in  it,  some- 
times it  is  sure  to  become  irksome.  Those  for 
whom  he  works,  or  the  aim  he  has  in  working,  must 
so  excite  his  interest  that  he  is  glad  to  do  even 
disagreeable  things.  And  even  then  he  is  not  an 
angel. 

To  some  extent  his  work  ought  to  have  material 
remuneration.  Often  he  wants  no  more  than  the 
pleasure  of  helping  and  the  appreciation  he  de- 
serves. Those  two  rewards  must  never  fail  to 
come.  If  there  is  no  form  of  interest  he  can  take 
in  his  work,  it  will  become  only  eye-service.  He 
will  be  at  cross  purposes  with  duty.  Co-operative 
partnership  is  most  congenial  to  him.  It  appeals 
to  his  self-respect,  enlightens  him  about  values 


72  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

and  needs,  and  gives  him  an  unselfish  interest  in 
others  besides  himself. 

It  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  he  receive 
some  of  the  rewards  in  order  to  gratify  and  train 
his  sense  of  ownership  and  responsibility,  to  sat- 
isfy his  sense  of  right  and  to  secure  the  uncoerced 
co-operation  of  his  will.  The  sharing  may  be  in 
indirect  ways.  Even  if  his  part  goes  back  into  the 
common  fund  for  the  support  of  the  family,  he  is 
usually  willing,  provided  he  can  have  the  pleasure 
of  being  in  the  combine,  and  can  retain  his  sense 
of  freedom. 

His  ownership  of  his  earnings  is  to  be  recog- 
nised, even  though  he  is  not  to  be  left  without  in- 
structions as  to  the  way  he  should  handle  them. 
Habits  of  thrift  must  be  taught  both  in  the  work 
done  and  in  the  care  taken  of  his  possessions. 

The  other  group  of  enterprises  is  what  he  initi- 
ates, himself,  though  often  with  the  assistance  of 
other  boys.  The  boy  who  is  not  given  encourage- 
ment to  try  his  talents  in  that  way  is  denied  his 
birthright. 

To  be  sure  his  first  business  transactions  are 
chiefly  aerial  and  he  deals  in  atmospheric  values 
of  a  very  warm  temperature.  He  seldom  becomes 
what,  at  first,  he  wants  to  become,  for  lie  can't  get 
all  his  arrangements  made  for  that  till  he  has  tried 
something  else  for  awhile,  and  while  he  is  doing 
that,  he  forgets  what  it  was  he  wanted  to  become. 

He  is  almost  certain  to  want  to  be  a  street  car 
conductor,  or  a  circus  rider,  or  a  pony  express- 


HIS  EMPLOYMENTS  73 

man,  or  a  pot  hunter,  or  a  whale  catcher,  or  an 
insect  catcher  for  the  Smithsonian,  or  a  gold  hun- 
ter, or  a  soldier.  He  is  not  especially  brave,  in 
fact,  is  seldom  so;  but  he  likes  the  banners  and 
the  buttons  and  the  stripes  and  the  guns,  for  the 
pomp  and  the  appearance  of  it  all.  Incidentally, 
he  would  not  mind  being  a  taxidermist,  or  a  dog 
fancier,  or  a  cowboy.  He  is  certain  to  be  stage- 
struck,  at  an  early  day.  I  was,  but  it  was  a  four 
horse  stage,  that  struck  my  admiration.  Gather- 
ing and  selling  berries,  peddling  apples,  running 
on  errands  for  a  store — these  are  his  common- 
place employments. 

The  amount  of  enjoyment  a  boy  gets  out  of  the 
enterprises  he  initiates  himself  is  a  wholesome 
education;  it  is  an  anticipation  of  his  career  and 
a  preparation  for  it.  He  must  be  encouraged  to 
do  this,  and  carefully  guided.  Guidance  is  highly 
necessary.  When  my  cousin  and  I  gathered  the 
apples  that  would,  otherwise,  have  gone  to  waste 
in  his  father's  orchard,  and  took  them  down  to 
Petersburg  and  sold  some  of  them  and  gave  one 
half  of  the  gross  receipts  to  the  owner  of  the 
orchard  and  divided  the  other  half  between  us,  it 
was  fine  business.  But  the  business  reached  its 
most  fascinating  point  after  we  had  peddled  all 
we  could  and  then  would  throw  them  out  to  the 
crowds  of  boys  to  see  them  scramble  and  eat. 
And  they  were  gifted  at  both  scrambling  and  eat- 
ing. The  decline  of  the  lightning  rod  also  opened 
to  me  a  little  activity  which  I  shall  always  re- 


74  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

member  with  pleasure.  The  old  rods  on  the  house 
came  down  and  were  turned  over  to  me,  together 
with  some  that  once  decorated  a  previous  resi- 
dence, and  I  sold  them  for  a  pretty  good  price  to 
Mr.  Wooley,  down  at  the  blacksmith  shop.  The 
pleasure  of  taking  that  money  out  of  my  pocket 
and  counting  it  at  least  a  dozen  times  a  day  is  a 
sweet  memory,  even  yet. 

Even  employment  with  hobbies  is  a  benefit,  as 
it  develops  special  tastes  and,  sometimes,  fits  for 
special  work  in  the  future.  If  no  other  good 
comes  from  them  they  are,  at  least,  employments, 
and  that  is  something;  but  the  memory  of  them 
is  sure  to  be  a  source  of  recreative  amusement  to 
him,  in  the  future.  One  boy  of  my  acquaintance 
went  into  the  white  rabbit  industry  and  actually 
paid  expenses,  while  getting  back  large  returns  of 
pleasure  and  information  and  sympathy  with  ani- 
mal life.  Another  went  into  photography,  while 
a  little  group,  near  by,  studied  wireless  telegraphy. 
Drawing,  ceramic  work,  sketching,  music — vocal 
and  instrumental — have  given  boys  lots  of  pleas- 
ure and  profit.  Another  makes  it  pay  to  raise 
pigs;  another,  a  certain  breed  of  dogs;  still  an- 
other boy  makes  a  specialty  of  pigeons.  There  is 
an  enterprising  lad  who  raises  vegetables  in  the 
back  yard,  on  shares,  and  he  sells  his  half  for 
enough  to  take  music  lessons  on  the  flute.  Boys' 
organisations — gangs  and  clubs  and  troops — may 
be  given  employment  by  the  public  and  by  individ- 
uals. That  kind  of  organisation  does  double  good. 


HIS  EMPLOYMENTS  75 

But  the  note  of  warning  must  be  sounded. 
Perils  await  him.  Among  his  interesting  ventures 
are  those  in  which  his  father  engages  to  give  him 
financial  compensation  for  services  of  greater  or 
less  insignificance.  Let  both  him  and  his  father 
beware  lest  he  learn  to  put  a  financial  value  on 
those  ministries  which  he  should  render  freely  and 
gladly,  as  a  son.  Let  him  learn  to  co-operate  for 
the  pleasure  of  doing  his  part.  Let  every  com- 
mand given  him  be  a  summons  to  his  nobler  sense 
of  comradeship,  all  work  come  to  be  team  work 
and  all  rewards  be  a  gratification  to  his  unselfish- 
ness. 

He  is  in  peril  of  early  pessimism,  as  he  finds 
that  everybody  feels  competent  to  direct  him  and 
justified  in  imposing  on  him  by  withholding  or 
cutting  his  wages,  working  him  overtime,  and,  in 
numberless  ways,  failing  to  recognise  that  a  boy 
can  get  tired,  or  hungry,  or  irritated,  or  indignant. 

But  worse  than  that,  the  employed  boy  is  in  dan- 
ger of  hearing  profane  and  obscene  talk,  and  that, 
too,  from  men  whose  consciences  should  blister 
them  for  the  infamy.  The  man  who  pours  filth 
and  profanity  into  a  boy's  ear  is  worthy  of  severe 
retribution.  Yet,  at  the  noon  hour  and  in  the 
office,  that  boy  may  hear  words  which  make  him 
blush  and  he  is  often  invited  to  do  things  that  he 
knows  his  parents  would  rather  see  him  die  than 
do. 

He  may  be  so  directed  that  his  early  ventures 
will  be  in  the  line  of  his  future  achievements.  It 


76  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

is  well  for  him  to  have  in  mind  such  boys  as  An- 
drew Carnegie  who  came  over  from  Scotland 
with  only  a  sovereign  in  his  pockets  but  with  sov- 
ereignty in  his  soul,  and  fired  a  stationary  engine 
for  two  fifty  a  week.  A  boy  can  get  the  virtues 
of  industry,  honesty,  fairness  and  altruism  started 
and  operative  in  his  life  quite  early. 


HIS  POSSESSIONS 

IF  ownership  of  something  is  essential  for  a 
man,  it  is  for  a  boy,  as  well.  It  is  necessary  for 
a  man  because  God  has  put  him  in  the  midst  of 
things  that  are  to  be  owned,  has  given  him  a  de- 
sire for  possession  and  has  distinctly  told  him  to 
subdue  and  use  them.  And  whenever  we  find  a 
man  who  has  lost  all  desire  for  such  things,  he 
does  not  take  the  right  kind  of  interest  in  them, 
nor  feel  responsibility,  nor  get  the  discipline  he 
might  through  his  effort  to  possess  them,  unless  he 
has  some  special  mission  in  the  world,  providen- 
tially appointed,  which  prevents  acquisition  of 
property. 

So  a  boy  must  begin  to  have  things  of  his  own, 
for  he  needs  training  in  that,  as  well  as  in  his 
memory  and  reasoning  and  powers  of  speech. 
Through  his  memory  he  owns  much ;  through  lay- 
ing up  something,  he  is  providing  for  the  future 
and  increasing  his  present  enjoyments  and  oppor- 
tunities. One  can  own  only  what  he  can  know  and 
use.  The  vagrant  has  nothing  to  enjoy ;  the  very 
rich  own  very  little  of  what  they  have,  because 
they  cannot  enter  into  it,  just  as  a  man  can  have 

77 


78  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

great  supplies  of  food,  but  can  assimilate  only  one 
meal  at  a  time. 

A  boy  must  gratify  that  desire,  secure  that  dis- 
cipline and  feel  that  responsibility,  by  owning,  and 
caring  for,  and  managing  something  in  the  line  of 
possessions.  He  must  have  his  own  toys,  books, 
clothes  and  articles  of  usefulness.  His  pockets 
show  his  passion  for  possession,  a  blind  desire, 
working  without  the  power  of  selection,  and  the 
result  is  an  aggregation  of  things  entirely  useless, 
except  to  a  boy — knife,  tops,  marbles,  bean-shoot- 
ers, beeswax,  bullets,  buckles,  lead,  scrap  iron, 
slings,  fishing  worms,  chewing  gum,  licorice,  candy, 
pills.  There  is  an  age  when  he  is  more  active  in 
such  enterprises,  but  he  is  doing  the  same  thing  he 
does  when  he  amasses  wealth.  He  has  a  trading 
age,  from  about  eleven  to  fifteen,  when  he  will 
trade  anything  he  has  for  anything  any  other  boy 
has — cats  and  dogs  and  pigeons  and  toys  and  any 
of  the  stock  he  carries  in  his  pockets. 

He  must  not  only  possess  things,  but  take  care 
of  them  as  well.  The  penalty  for  not  having  what 
he  can  call  his  own  is  that  he  never  has  anything 
to  give  to  others,  is  thriftless,  selfish,  begging,  bor- 
rowing and  tempted  to  steal  what  he  would  like  to 
have.  Possessions  mean  power  and  thrift  is  prep- 
aration for  peace.  He  cannot  take  care  of  his  own 
things  unless  he  has  a  place  for  them  which  is 
his  own.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  a  boy 
should  have  a  room,  a  trunk  and  all  the  equip- 
ment with  which  to  take  care  of  his  things.  That 


HIS  POSSESSIONS  79 

is  not  the  only  reason  be  should  have  a  separate 
room,  but  that  alone  is  enough. 

What  has  been  said  about  all  of  this  applies  es- 
pecially to  his  money.  As  he  is  expected  to  make 
money  and  possess  it  and  use  it  in  the  future,  he 
must  begin  as  a  boy,  and  learn  to  do  it  in  the 
right  way,  so  as  to  avoid  the  wrong  way  later. 
The  very  same  principles  that  he  is  to  observe 
then  are  to  be  acted  upon  now,  both  because  they 
are  right  and  because  he  will  not  act  on  them  as 
a  man,  unless  he  learns  to  act  on  them  now.  How 
is  a  boy  to  get  money?  That  is  a  matter  of  far- 
reaching  importance.  He  may  properly  get  it  in 
two  ways — receive  it  as  a  gift  and  earn  it.  Both 
ways  are  necessary.  It  should  come  in  the  form 
of  an  allowance,  given  freely  and  regularly.  If 
he  has  to  tease  and  beg  for  it,  he  gets  no  training, 
finds  no  law  of  cause  and  effect  and  of  parental 
forethought,  gains  no  sentiment  of  partnership 
with  parents.  If  it  does  not  come  regularly,  in  a 
dependable  way,  he  may  be  tempted  to  get  it  in  a 
way  that  is  not  honest.  His  conscience  does  not 
awake  as  early  as  his  desire  for  possessions. 

There  may  be  objections  to  the  allowance,  as 
there  are  objections  to  every  way  of  doing  any- 
thing. There  is  the  danger  that  he  will  come  to 
think  of  it  as  his  by  right,  and  not  as  a  gift ;  and 
he  may  grow  up  to  lack  appreciation  of  what  is 
done  for  him.  But  there  are  always  dangers  in 
good  things,  and  it  is  not  impossible  to  safeguard 
him. 


'80  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

It  must  be  given  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep  him 
responsible  to  his  parents.  As  it  comes  regularly 
it  cultivates  in  him  order  and  system.  A  pocket- 
book  to  keep  it  in  ministers  to  his  pleasure,  makes 
him  orderly  and  enables  him  to  save  it  more  easily. 
An  account  book  in  which  to  set  down  receipts  and 
expenditures  trains  him  in  the  virtue  of  accuracy. 
Reports  to  his  father  each  week  keep  alive  the 
sense  of  responsibility  to  authority,  even  for  his 
own  things.  Requiring  him  to  save  a  part  of  each 
week's  allowance  enables  him  to  accumulate  and 
encourages  thrift.  A  small  reward  for  additional 
savings  will  still  further  teach  him  the  value  of 
money.  A  rigid  refusal  to  allow  him  to  spend  it  in 
injurious  ways  may  prevent  spendthrift  habits. 
Putting  a  portion  of  it  into  a  savings  bank  that 
will  pay  him  interest  gives  him  an  idea  of  busi- 
ness. 

Meeting  some  of  his  personal  expenses  with  his 
own  money  will  teach  him  forethought  and  self- 
denial.  Making  some  of  his  own  purchases  will 
teach  him  good  judgment  and  self-reliance.  By 
the  time  he  is  his  own  man  he  will  have  money 
on  hand  and  he  will  have  learned  self-denial  and 
economy  and  forethought  and  patience. 

As  soon  as  he  is  able  to  invest  his  savings  in 
property  of  some  kind  which  will  require  his  care 
or  executive  skill,  he  begins  to  become  manly,  with 
a  sense  of  responsibility  and  a  wholesome  valua- 
tion of  himself. 


xn 

HIS   SPARE   TIME 

A  BOY  has  very  little  spare  time,  if  he  is  left  to 
arrange  his  own  schedule.  In  fact,  he  will  not 
find  time  for  everything  he  wants  to  dp.  And  he 
certainly  will  not  have  time  if  he  does  everything 
he  is  asked  to  do.  But  if  a  reasonable  schedule 
is  worked  out  for  him,  he  will  have  enough  time 
on  his  hands  to  follow  his  own  bent  and  look  after 
some  of  his  urgent  interests.  He  will  be  left  to 
his  own  resources  a  while  each  day.  That  is  the 
spare  time  of  which  I  am  especially  speaking. 
After  awhile  he  will  be  in  charge  of  twenty-four 
hours  each  day,  and  he  is  now  getting  ready  for 
that  responsibility,  by  taking  over  a  few  hours 
at  a  time.  If  he  can  be  helped  to  make  a  success 
of  them,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  can 
succeed  with  the  whole  twenty-four,  by  and  by. 

Let  us  take  an  inventory  and  see  what  he  has 
on  his  hands.  Count  out  the  time  arranged  for 
him  in  the  family  schedule — hours  for  eating  and 
sleeping  and  doing  the  chores  about  the  house  and 
yard,  or  on  the  farm.  Then  count  out  the  hours 
of  school  arranged  for  by  the  public.  There  may 
be  a  special  concession  of  extra  time  for  extra 
chores  and  for  sleeping,  for  both  of  which  he  is 

81 


82  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUBS 

very  grateful.  After  allowing  for  all  the  time 
thus  pre-empted,  we  have  quite  a  margin  left — 
some  in  the  morning,  a  little  at  noon,  more  at  the 
close  of  school,  still  more  after  the  evening  meal ; 
and  he  is  to  be  allowed  large  liberty  in  the  use 
of  it. 

Part  of  his  own  time  is  apt  to  arrange  for  itself, 
as  he  and  the  other  boys  drift  into  their  plans 
for  play,  and  no  one  knows  just  how  it  is  done. 
They  gravitate  together  at  certain  times  and 
places  as  naturally  as  blackbirds  flock  together 
in  the  autumn.  It  is  the  group  that  does  it,  rather 
than  any  one  boy  in  the  group;  it  is  a  composite 
choice,  even  though  suggestions  come  from  indi- 
viduals here  and  there. 

But  I  am  speaking  of  the  time  that  is  left  to 
his  own  initiative,  when  he  is  out  of  school  and 
through  with  his  group  plays  and  his  chores,  es- 
pecially at  the  evening  hour.  Let  us  say  he  has 
three  hours,  more  or  less  each  day,  which  he  can 
call  his  own, — exclusive  of  the  Sundays.  That 
would  make  eighteen  hours  in  six  days.  In  one 
year  it  would  make  a  great  big  slice  of  time  for 
which  he  is  more  or  less  responsible.  He  has  no 
time  to  throw  away,  but  he  has  enough  for  very 
large  achievements  and  it  is  better  than  if  it  were 
all  crowded  together. 

The  fact  must  be  faced,  that,  as  he  grows  older, 
it  is  the  most  perilous  time  of  the  whole  twenty- 
four  hours — for  three  reasons.  It  is  the  time  of 
the  day  when  temptation  to  all  the  forms  of  dis- 


HIS  SPARE  TIME  83 

sipation  is  most  bold  and  brazen  and  persistent; 
it  finds  him  more  relaxed  and  less  on  his  guard 
especially  in  the  evening  than  at  any  other  time  of 
the  day.  It  is  the  only  time  that  he  can  call  his 
very  own  and,  in  the  mere  deciding,  it  gives  a  new 
responsibility  which  reacts  on  his  whole  nature. 
He  shows  what  it  is  to  him,  not  so  much  by  the 
way  he  does  the  tasks  prescribed  by  another  as 
by  the  way  he  prescribes  his  own  tasks. 

If  he  is  taught  to  use  it  rightly  as  a  boy,  his 
destiny  is  secure.  He  cannot  be  coerced,  but  the 
possibilities  may  be  opened  to  him  in  a  fascinating 
way  by  a  recital  of  historic  examples.  Elihu 
Burritt,  the  blacksmith,  became  a  learned  linguist 
while  working  at  the  forge,  as  did  William  Carey 
while  working  as  a  cobbler  and  later  as  a  mis- 
sionary. Sir  John  Lubbock  was  a  banker,  but  he 
found  time  at  odd  moments  to  become  a  great 
archeologist ;  E.  C.  Stedman  became  a  man  of  let- 
ters, though  a  banker;  Mr.  Westcott,  the  banker, 
wrote  "  David  Harum"  at  odd  moments.  John 
Locke,  the  philosopher,  did  most  of  his  work  which 
is  of  permanent  value,  while  resting  from  his  daily 
toil.  Our  own  Benjamin  Franklin  used  to  take 
a  book  to  the  table  with  him,  when  he  was  intent 
on  some  special  scientific  point.  Hugh  Miller  be- 
came a  learned  geologist  while  pursuing  his  trade 
as  a  stone  mason.  But  the  list  is  too  long  to  give. 
These  are  eminent  examples  but  not  too  eminent 
to  be  useful. 

Some  of  the  spare  time  can  be  spent  in  play,  es- 


84  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

pecially  in  the  twilight  when  he  and  the  other 
boys  get  together  on  the  lawn,  or  in  the  vacant  lot 
across  the  street,  for  a  wholesome  game.  The 
long  winter  evenings  give  rare  opportunities  for 
a  variety  of  things.  Instructive  play  is  one  of 
the  best  things  for  him  and  the  other  members  of 
the  family.  The  play  may  be  dramatic  with  a 
simple  attempt  to  portray  the  characters  of  a 
book.  Or  the  time  may  be  given  to  alternate  read- 
ing in  which  each  one  takes  a  character.  For- 
tunate for  him  if  the  older  members  of  the  family 
are  playful  as  well  as  serious  in  their  feelings, 
and  know  how  to  give  direction  to  the  evening's 
enjoyments  in  the  form  of  sympathetic  and  sen- 
sible advice  and  co-operation.  He  is  always  open 
to  that  kind  of  help,  for  it  trains  instead  of  de- 
nying his  power  of  choice  to  him.  The  right  of 
tactful  supervision  over  all  his  time  must  never 
be  surrendered. 

When  the  games  and  readings  are  social  they 
develop  his  sense  of  social  responsibility  and  train 
him  in  the  virtue  of  sympathy.  The  more  he  can 
do  for  the  benefit  of  others  the  more  he  gets  out 
of  it.  If  he  is  fortunate  enough  to  be  one  of 
several  children,  he  will  come  to  think  of  the  mu- 
tual interests  promoted  by  this  use  of  his  spare 
time  with  more  pleasure  than  of  any  other  feature 
of  it.  This  will  be  increasingly  the  case  after  he 
reaches  his  teens. 

The  evening's  programme  must  not  be  exhaust- 


HIS  SPAEE  TIME  85 

ing  and  must  not  be  so  exciting  as  to  make  him 
dream  of  being  tomahawked  or  chased  by  tigers. 
Nor  must  he  be  allowed  to  think  he  is  being  driven 
into  a  grown-people's  programme.  This  will 
take  time.  But  I  don't  know  any  first-class  boy 
who  is  not  worth  time  and  all  the  time  there  is. 
It  will  take  a  great  deal  of  ingenious  forethought 
and  planning  and  arranging,  but  if  there  is  any 
boy  worth  doing  it  for  it  is  your  boy. 

There  are  other  things  besides  play  that  he  can 
do  in  his  spare  hours.  It  is  a  good  time  for  him 
to  ride  his  hobby  if  he  has  one,  and  if  he  has  not 
one  it  is  a  good  time  for  him  to  hunt  one  up.  His 
dominant  taste  will  show  itself  enough  for  a  wise 
pair  of  parents  to  help  him  find  the  very  one  he 
needs.  So  many  things  in  science  and  mechanics 
are  now  brought  within  the  comprehension  of  chil- 
dren that  it  will  be  easy  to  interest  him  in  some- 
thing that  may  prove  of  value  to  him  all  the  rest 
of  his  life.  He  is  fortunate  if  he  has  a  strong 
taste  for  music  and  can  give  some  of  his  evenings 
to  that. 

One  thing  more,  and  of  vast  moment :  He  must 
be  taught  to  minister  in  an  unselfish  way  to  the 
needy,  and  some  of  his  own  time  ought  to  be  spent 
that  way.  If  spare  moments  are  the  gold  dust  of 
time  for  men,  they  are  for  boys  as  well.  If  men 
ought  to  practise  active  benevolence,  they  can  not 
learn  to  do  it  well  unless  they  begin  when  they  are 
boys. 


86  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUKS 

Through  Sunday-school  and  social 
tions  good  methods  will  be  suggested  for  far- 
reaching  ministries  to  his  fellow  beings.  This  will 
not  only  be  a  discipline  of  essential  importance,  but 
a  delight  of  the  highest  kind. 


XIII 

HIS  LOOKS 

A  BOY  is  not  always  a  thing  of  beauty — not  yet. 
The  "irrepressible  conflict/'  of  which  we  have 
read  and  said  so  much,  is  the  conflict  between  his 
desire  to  look  well  and  his  disinclination  to  use 
the  measures  that  tend  to  insure  good  looks.  A 
presentable  appearance  is  impossible  without 
cleanliness,  and  from  that  standpoint  boys  drop 
into  three  classes. 

First  are  the  few,  the  precious  few,  who  like  to 
use  soap  and  water  and  scrubbing  implements  on 
ordinary  as  well  as  on  state  occasions ;  but  it  must 
be  conceded  that  this  is  almost  an  invisible,  rather 
than  an  invincible,  company  of  "Knights  of  the 
Bath." 

The  second  group  must  always  have  high  pres- 
sure inducements  to  avail  themselves  of  bathroom 
facilities. 

The  third  is  the  great  middle  class  of  boys,  who, 
with  more  or  less  reluctance,  will  co-operate  in  the 
care  of  their  persons.  It  will  be  different  later  on, 
but  then  they  will  no  longer  be  boys.  Meantime 
the  boy's  face,  hands,  finger-nails,  neck  and  ears 
are  negligible  quantities.  There  is  a  time  when 
almost  any  little  boy  is  pretty,  if  cleaned  up  and 

87 


88  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

dressed  tastefully,  and  he  enjoys  being  told  he  is 
pretty;  but  has  no  more  respect  for  his  looks 
than  to  play  in  a  mud  puddle,  if  he  has  a  chance 
and  is  not  watched. 

Those  who  have  the  care  of  him  find  that  his 
looks  are  an  element  in  the  boy  problem,  and  his 
looks  are,  in  some  degree,  a  matter  of  clothes.  I 
think  we  are  getting  away  from  the  good  old  days 
when  the  laws  of  heredity  had  charge  of  the  boy's 
clothing  department.  The  second-hand  dealer, 
the  weary  tramp,  and  the  frontier  missionary, 
with  his  seven  closely  graded  boys,  have  come  to 
his  aid  in  relieving  him  of  some  of  those  heirlooms 
to  which  he  used  to  be  the  sole  heir  apparent. 
Still  there  is  a  boy  here  and  there  living  under 
the  old  dispensation,  and  there  are  men  in  abun- 
dance who  once  lived  the  life  of  pensioners  on  the 
bounty  of  preceding  generations.  Two  boys  were 
engaged  in  conversation  and  one  of  them  said: 
"My  daddy  has  some  new  teeth  that  the  dentist 
made  him."  With  significant  promptness  his 
chum  asked,  "What  is  he  going  to  do  with  his  old 
ones?"  "Oh,  I  don't  know,"  was  the  reply;  "I 
suppose  they'll  cut  'em  down  and  make  me  wear 
'em." 

There  comes  a  time  when,  even  with  the  best 
of  clothes,  it  is  difficult  to  secure  the  co-operation 
of  his  looks  in  making  a  desirable  impression.  He 
would  like  to  be  graceful  but  he  can't  be.  Joseph 
Parker  says  that  when  Gladstone  smiled  it  looked 
like  sunshine  breaking  over  a  crag;  but  even  Glad- 


HIS  LOOKS  89 

stone  was  not  credited  with  that  achievement  at 
the  age  of  fourteen.  To  speak  after  the  manner 
of  the  scientist,  we  say  that  his  bones  have  grown 
faster  than  his  muscles  and  his  mind  in  its  appre- 
ciation of  ideal  things,  of  action  and  form  faster 
than  either;  therefore  he  cannot  handle  his  mus- 
cles as  gracefully  as  he  will  do  later  on.  With  an 
acuter  sense  of  what  he  wants  to  do  and  less  skill 
than  is  required,  he  suffers  confusion  and  mortifi- 
cation which  makes  him  still  more  clumsy.  He 
belongs  to  the  awkward  squad.  He  is  starting  to 
look  up.  He  has  been  living  in  his  imagination 
and  he  is  taking  that  same  power  over  into  another 
department  of  the  real.  He  sees  a  disparity  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  unreal,  especially  the  phys- 
ical real,  and  he  is  clumsy  and  awkward,  moody 
and  sometimes  melancholy. 

It  is  true,  yet  a  paradox,  that  he  is  at  his  most 
forbidding  and  fascinating  period  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  and  his  looks  betray  him  in  both  re- 
spects. Conceit  and  humiliation,  love  and  dislike 
are  struggling  within  him.  He  likes  his  looks  and 
dislikes  them.  He  wants  different  features,  or 
feet,  or  hands,  but  he  hopes  he  is  really  not  homely. 

There  is  a  moral  value  in  his  looks  because  they 
react  on  his  disposition  and  his  tendencies;  and 
they  affect  his  relations  with  people  whether  it  is 
desirable  they  should  or  not.  For  that  reason 
there  is  a  moral  value  in  clothes ;  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  see  him  awake  to  their  significance  when 
that  new  world  in  which  are  all  the  deathless  in- 


90  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

terests  of  the  heart,  opens  to  him.  They  are  in- 
volved in  the  appearance  he  makes.  Now  he  de- 
liberately washes  behind  his  ears,  shines  the  heels 
of  his  shoes  even  when  in  a  great  hurry;  finds  that 
a  mirror  is  an  indispensable  article  of  furniture 
for  his  room,  gives  careful  attention  to  the  parting 
of  his  hair,  combs  it  all  the  way  back,  feels  humili- 
ated at  any  little  patch  on  his  trousers  that  is  in 
view  of  his  own  eyes,  and  actually  blushes  at  the 
thought  of  patches  around  on  the  other  side  of  him 
which  others  can  see  though  he  may  not. 

Those  who  were  children  so  long  ago  that  they 
treat  the  whole  matter  in  a  cavalier  way  and  say: 
"It  is  not  your  clothes,  my  son,  that  count  but  you ; 
pretty  is  as  pretty  does,"  may  be  right  but  they 
are  just  as  wrong  as  they  are  right  for  it  is  only 
half  the  truth.  When  there  comes  a  new  con- 
sciousness of  self  there  arises  a  new  demand  for 
clothes.  The  new  sense  of  others  requires  that  he 
present  himself  to  them  in  a  satisfactory  way.  A 
new  pride  in  his  own  family  calls  for  suitable 
clothes.  There  are  two  ways  to  treat  his  clothes 
instinct — fight  it  and  bring  on  a  conflict,  or 
correct  and  cultivate  it  and  teach  him  to  do  the 
same. 

His  features  must  remain,  as  a  rule,  as  nature 
made  them  to  grow,  but  they  may  be  helped  out 
with  clothes,  cleanliness,  appropriate  decorations 
and  the  right  kind  of  foods  and  scientific  culture, 
till  they  reshape  themselves  and  assume  manly 
beauty,  especially  when  there  is  a  noble  and  beau- 


HIS  LOOKS  91 

tiful  soul  residing  in  the  body  and  using  it  for  high 
purposes. 

Culture  in  good  looks  is  one  of  the  rights  of  a 
boy,  in  order  to  offset  any  present  disadvantage 
and  equip  him  for  future  effectiveness.  And  it 
can  be  carried  on  only  with  his  co-operation.  But 
therein  lies  a  peril.  His  vanity,  curious  thing,  is 
capable  of  puffing  him  up  with  conceit  and  pulling 
him  down  with  dissatisfaction.  To  work  for  good 
looks  is  not  bad  as  a  means  of  self-expression,  but 
it  is  fatal  as  an  end  in  itself.  He  will  need  both 
advice  and  direction,  but  they  will  be  most  effect- 
ive when  incidental.  Clothes  are  to  keep  him 
warm,  absorb  or  transfer  impurities  and  react  on 
his  bearing.  He  must  have  both  dress  and  ad- 
dress. 

Put  on  him  clothes  that  do  not  wound  his  taste 
nor  puff  up  his  pride  and  he  has  no  artificial  load 
to  carry.  Teach  him  to  dress  himself,  with  due 
regard  to  comfort  and  to  the  sanctity  of  that  sa- 
cred mystery,  the  body,  and  you  have  given  him 
some  of  the  deep  lessons  of  life.  There  is  a  cul- 
ture in  the  art  of  dressing  which,  first  of  all,  puts 
the  man  above  millinery  and  then  adapts  the  mil- 
linery to  him  with  a  sense  of  his  absolute  superi- 
ority. When  the  inner  spirit  is  cultivated  it 
transfigures  the  boy  and  gives  him  an  impressive- 
ness  which  is  without  peril.  Keep  steadily  and 
consciously  in  mind  that  it  is  the  character  you  are 
cultivating,  through  the  culture  of  the  charm  of 
the  outer  person,  and  the  latter  will  be  second  to 


92  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

the  former.  When  the  mind  is  filled  with  the  sense 
of  the  true,  the  beautiful  and  good,  it  will  react  on 
the  body  to  make  it  conform  to  the  mind ;  and  the 
culture  of  the  body  will  be  a  sacred  ministry  to 
that  sacred  temple  both  of  the  human  and  the  di- 
vine spirit. 

Great  homeliness  may  be  depressing  to  him, 
while  the  very  handsome  boy  is  tempted  to  vanity. 
Fortunate  for  him  if  he  is  not  so  homely  that  he 
has  to  think  about  it  and  thereby  become  egoisti- 
cal, and  is  not  so  handsome  that  he  becomes  ego- 
tistical. 


XIV 

HIS  GANG 

BOYS  like  the  word  "gang."  It  is  the  most  ac- 
curate word  we  can  use,  anyway.  Their  "gang" 
period  begins  when  they  are  about  eleven, — some- 
times earlier;  it  continues  till  thirteen  and  some- 
times to  fourteen  or  fifteen. 

The  social  nature  is  unfolding  in  new  ways  and 
they  do  new  things,  new  even  to  their  forgetful 
fathers,  who  wonder  why  boys  are  such  strange 
creatures,  and  declare  they  were  never  like  them — 
which,  of  course,  is  strictly  not  true.  At  this  pe- 
riod, boys  are  compelled  to  get  together  for  two 
reasons:  First,  because  they  are  at  that  age;  it 
is  in  their  bones  and  is  burning  like  fire ;  the  social 
world  has  opened  to  them  and  they  seek  their 
social  affiliations  in  the  line  of  their  tastes.  Sec- 
ond: They  get  together  because  their  physical 
activities  are  such  that  no  boy  can  get  all  the  exer- 
cise he  wants  without  the  aid  of  other  boys  who 
can  assist  him  in  organising  his  energies  into  co- 
operative enterprises.  He  simply  cannot  bear  to 
be  left  alone.  Girls  are  not  in  his  class.  They 
have  no  charm  nor  terror  for  him — not  yet. 

They  get  together  by  neighbourhoods,  as  a  rule, 
and  at  the  call  of  someone  who  is  a  natural  leader 

93 


94  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUKS 

and  assumes  all  the  functions  of  a  leader  with- 
out appointment  and  without  hesitation.  There 
is  no  rotation  in  office  and  when  the  chief  goes 
the  gang  is  already  gone;  it  has  reached  its 
term  and  expires  by  natural  limitation  and  the 
boys  have  no  more  use  for  it  than  for  their  father's 
old  clothes.  "While  the  gang  lasts  it  keeps  busy. 
What  they  do  when  they  get  together  depends  on 
several  things — how  old  they  are,  what  kind  of  a 
leader  they  have,  where  they  hold  their  meetings, 
what  sort  of  homes  they  come  from  and  what  in- 
fluences come  from  older  people.  If  they  get 
together  just  before  they  emerge  from  the  preda- 
tory, individualistic  stage,  or  if  they  have  a  leader 
of  a  destructive  and  lawless  nature,  or  if  they 
"hang  out"  in  objectionable  places,  or  if  they 
come  from  homes  where  snarling  and  nagging,  or 
indifference,  prevails,  or  if  they  are  left  without 
any  appreciative  and  directive  help  as  a  "gang" 
from  older  people,  they  are  likely  to  inaugurate 
a  torrid  temperature  for  the  community  and 
achieve  widespread  and  undesirable  fame  for 
themselves.  But  they  can  be  gentlemen  and  can 
emerge  from  this  period  with  new  attainments 
and  equipments. 

There  are  some  things  necessary.  First  of 
all  they  must  do  things,  do  them  with  heads  and 
hands  and  hearts  and  feet  and  voices.  Do  not 
forget  the  ceaseless  accompaniment  of  sound. 
And  all  of  them  must  do  things  and  do  the  same 
things.  "All  the  kids  do  it,"  is  the  conclusive 


HIS  GANG  95 

reason  for  a  given  deed.  The  man  who  does 
things  is  their  hero,  whether  shooting  mountain 
lions,  or  riding  a  bucking  broncho,  or  playing 
ball,  or  going  as  a  heroic  missionary  to  the 
heathen. 

Their  activities,  which  may  be  entirely  admis- 
sible, are  hunting,  fishing  and  roaming  into  the 
country;  making  bonfires  and  attending  fires — 
for,  if  there  is  one  thing  a  boy  enjoys  above  an- 
other, it  is  being  promptly  on  hand  at  every  con- 
flagration and  remaining  till  the  last  fireman  has 
left;  participating  in  political  parades;  attending 
Sunday-school  picnics;  going  on  real  bona  fide 
errands,  when  the  gang  spirit  is  recognised  in 
some  distinctive  way;  engaging  in  any  kind  of 
well-doing,  to  which  he  is  led  by  comradeship 
and  not  by  the  collar.  Put  special  regalia  on  him 
and  he  will  work  till  he  drops.  The  above  list 
does  not  begin  to  be  complete,  as  every  boy  knows ; 
it  is  suggestive. 

They  co-operate  in  collecting,  for  they  all  seem 
to  have  a  collecting  mania;  not  that  they  care 
very  much  for  the  things  they  collect,  but  it  is  the 
collecting  itself  they  like.  "We  may  utilise  this 
mania  and  direct  them  into  something  perma- 
nently worth  while,  otherwise  they  will  likely 
acquire  an  aggregation  that  would  suit  only  a 
freak  show.  They  make  all  sorts  of  social  ex- 
periments in  caves  and  old  houses,  and  usually 
have  a  guardhouse  for  enemies  and  insubordi- 
nates.  They  would  care  very  little  for  the  fea- 


96  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

tures  that  so  attract  them  in  the  " Boys'  Bri- 
gades, "  and  "Boy  Scouts,"  if  it  were  not  for  the 
crowd  they  can  get  into. 

They  think  out  a  nomenclature  which  would 
surprise  any  adult  maker  of  dictionaries.  It  is 
an  era  of  slang  and  nicknames.  The  leader  is 
"  Judge,"  or  "Doc,"  or  "Cap'n,"  and  every  boy 
has  a  new  name  that  is  far  beyond  the  reach  of  a 
Dickens  to  invent.  Each  contributes  to  the  com- 
mon freak  fund.  This  is  the  era  of  yells  and 
signals  and  whistles  and  shyness  among  stran- 
gers and  disinclination  to  show  affection,  as  such, 
at  home  or  anywhere  else.  The  boy  thinks  a 
great  deal  more  of  his  teacher  than  she  imagines 
and  he  dotes  on  his  daddy  and  often  brags  about 
him,  but  would  rather  keep  him  in  ignorance  of 
it.  They  don't  have  to  express  themselves  to 
each  other,  because  they  all  feel  alike  and  know 
it.  Their  talent  for  inventing  and  pursuing 
games  of  all  kinds  seems  phenomenal  and  it  is  all 
team  work.  The  boy  has  not  lost  his  individu- 
ality ;  he  has  rather  increased  it.  But  he  has  lost 
a  part  of  his  old  individualism  and  is  now  a  part 
of  a  brotherhood.  His  life  is  widening  out  from 
its  birthpoint. 

Some  latent  qualities  of  which  he  was  not 
aware,  are  being  released  during  this  period — 
courage  and  loyalty  to  others,  the  spirit  of  co- 
operation and  benevolence  and  obedience  to  au- 
thority, and  the  sense  of  reality.  He  learns  to 
hate  cowardice  and  the  boy  who  will  not  "take  a 


HIS  GANG  97 

dare"  is  read  out  of  his  class  at  once.  That  boy 
is  a  "baby,"  a  "sissy"  and  "has  no  sand."  Be- 
cause of  loyalty  and  pride  they  will  fight  for  their 
gang  and  help  the  individual  members  and  suffer 
and  bleed  for  the  good  of  the  order.  Individu- 
ally they  are  not  fond  of  fighting  as  a  rule,  but 
as  gangsters  they  may  enjoy  it. 

The  gang  may  be  good  or  bad,  may  turn  itself 
into  a  self-improvement  club,  or  a  band  of  marau- 
ders. Often  the  boys  do  not  know  which  way 
they  are  drifting.  If  a  strong  and  wise  and  lov- 
ing hand  lays  hold  of  them — and  keeps  itself  in- 
visible most  of  the  time — it  may  conduct  them 
through  that  period  and  work  transformations. 
Then  when  the  gang  is  gone  and  the  individuals 
remain,  loyalty  to  a  little  group  will  be  loyalty  to 
the  larger  group  of  man  as  such;  friendships 
within  the  group  will  grow  into  the  finer  friend- 
ships of  manhood;  courage  in  the  face  of  per- 
sonal or  clan  peril  will  become  that  doughty 
strength  of  heart  and  conscience  which  will  dare  to 
do  right  anywhere  and  always;  the  sense  of  re- 
ality will  be  the  perception  of  truth;  obedience 
to  the  law  of  the  clan  will  be  reverence  for  the 
laws  of  man  and  God. 

The  boys  appreciate  it  if  someone  comes  back 
and  down  to  their  level  and  gets  into  the  gang 
with  them,  provides  some  place  as  good  as  a  good 
home  for  them,  keeps  mischief  from  becoming 
malice  and  turns  energies  and  impulses  into  en- 
nobling activities;  goes  out  into  the  fields  and 


98  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

camps  with  them,  into  their  dens  and  caves  and 
laughs  with  them,  into  their  meetings  and  yells 
with  them.  They  like  that  sort  of  an  older  friend 
next  to  their  chief.  Jacob  Eiis  says  that  when  his 
wise  wife  saw  that  their  boys  were  in  a  gang  she 
joined  it  herself  and  got  control  of  it,  though  they 
never  suspected  what  she  was  about.  It  is  just 
the  time  to  tether  the  boy  to  the  biggest  and  best 
things  of  life.  Even  religion  can  reach  him 
through  his  gang  instinct. 


XV 

HIS  CHUMS 

IT  is  claimed  that  the  boy's  life  is  an  epitome 
of  the  life  of  the  race.  He  passes  through  the 
two  stages  that  the  race  has  passed  through  and 
when  he  gets  into  the  third  he  is  there  to  stay, 
as  the  race  now  is.  Some  wise  man  has  called 
them  the  stages  of  dependence,  independence  and 
interdependence.  At  first  it  is  dependence.  The 
boy  cannot  walk,  or  talk,  or  dress  himself — can- 
not even  feed  himself.  The  only  thing  in  the 
world  he  can  do  is  to  summon  assistance,  but  he 
is  certainly  gifted  at  that. 

He  could  honestly  say,  "This  one  thing  I  do," 
if  he  were  capable  of  saying  anything.  He  has 
been  fitted  out  with  an  appliance  for  turning  in  a 
distress  call,  or  a  riot  call,  which  is  warranted 
to  work  at  all  hours,  and  to  work  exceptionally 
well  in  the  darkness  of  the  night.  For  several 
years  he  is  in  the  strictly  dependent  state. 

Then  there  comes  a  period  of  independence,  not 
in  fact  but  in  his  feelings.  He  sometimes  thinks 
he  would  like  to  run  away,  though  in  almost  every 
instance  in  which  the  running-away  cure  has  been 
tried  it  has  completely  cured  the  runner.  From 
that  time  on,  running  away  is  not  in  his  line. 

99 


100  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

By  and  by  he  is  more  or  less  aware  of  the  in- 
terdependence stage.  Two  marks  of  childhood 
are  enthusiastic  fondness  for  play  and  compan- 
ionship. "  Mamma,  I  wish  I  was  two  little  pup- 
pies, so  I  could  play  together/'  said  Joe.  Eight 
here  his  chum  steps  in.  This  chum  is  likely  to 
drop  out  any  day  and  give  way  to  the  gang.  But 
after  the  gang  days,  chumship  sets  in  again  and 
has  in  it  the  elements  of  endurance. 

The  first  stages  in  the  development  of  the 
boy's  social  relationship  can  easily  be  distin- 
guished. The  first  is  the. indiscriminate  and  per- 
sonal stage,  when  he  scarcely  asks  who  his  com- 
panions are,  requiring  only  that  they  be  boys 
and  plenty  of  them,  the  more  the  better.  To  be 
sure,  he  has  his  preferences,  but  he  has  not  yet 
specialised  in  a  decisive  and  final  way.  During 
this  period,  he  is  apt  to  be  carried  by  his  strong 
team  sentiment  over  into  the  realm  of  the  oppo- 
site sex  and  fall  furiously  in  love  with  some  little 
girl.  He  usually  does  so  each  season,  or  each 
session  of  school,  and  he  thinks  he  can't  live  with- 
out her.  This  is  about  the  only  thing  in  his  boy- 
hood that  he  cannot  turn  into  play. 

The  second  stage  is  from  ten  to  twelve;  the 
third,  when  he  is  twelve  or  thirteen;  the  fourth, 
after  the  gang  is  dissolved;  the  fifth  is  more  de- 
liberate— it  is  final,  with  complexities. 

So  we  see  there  are  two  general  chumming 
periods,  before  and  after  the  gang  period,  one  of 
them  fleeting  and  fussy,  the  other  secretive  and 


HIS  CHUMS  10 1 

stable,  all  connected  with  the  awakening  of  the 
social  instincts,  all  of  them  marks  of  that  final 
state  of  interdependence.  First  it  prompts  him 
into  a  temporary  alliance  with  some  boy  and  he 
keeps  away  from  the  girls ;  then  he  gets  in  with  a 
crowd  of  boys,  under  the  influence  of  this  new 
impulse  which  leads  him  to  take  in  a  larger  section 
of  his  fellows. 

The  moment  the  girl  begins  to  appear  on  his 
horizon,  he  is  aware  of  a  new  phase  of  interde- 
pendence ;  he  drops  the  gang  at  once  and  wants  a 
boy  chum.  Is  it  for  protection  or  co-operation? 
The  boys  come  out  of  their  gang  as  the  animals 
went  into  the  ark,  "two  by  two." 

In  the  first  stage  the  friendship,  like  soda  pop, 
comes  with  a  bang  and  a  fizz  and  they  have  to 
make  the  most  of  it  while  it  lasts.  The  two  use 
the  same  slang,  the  same  yell,  the  same  tones  of 
voice,  the  same  games  and,  seemingly,  the  same 
personality.  When  they  have  a  quarrel  and 
make  up,  the  one  who  was  to  blame  usually  treats. 
They  acquire  a  stock  of  possessions, — bats  and 
balls,  dogs  and  cats,  and  when  the  partnership  is 
dissolved,  may  act  like  cats  and  dogs  in  determin- 
ing the  ownership  of  the  property. 

They  switch  chums  often  enough  to  keep  it 
from  growing  monotonous.  Memory  recalls  the 
time,  when,  in  a  little  country  school  one  spring- 
time, Will  and  I  would  be  chums  for  a  few  days, 
with  deadly  hostility  towards  a  small  crowd  of 
three  or  four  other  boys,  and  a  few  days  later 


1(52  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

John  and  I  would  be  tied  up  together  against  the 
field.  Some  way,  the  more  you  think  of  one  boy, 
the  more  you  are  likely  to  be  in  rivalry  with  the 
other  boys.  This  period  soon  passes.  It  seems 
a  provisional  and  preliminary  affair.  But  I  have 
known  boy  chums  continue  intimate  friends  for 
life.  The  reason  seems  to  be  that  the  same  two 
boys  kept  together  through  the  gang  period,  and 
re-established  their  intimacy  when  the  gang  dis- 
solved. 

It  is  at  the  age  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  that  the 
main  chum  period  opens.  The  clan  impulse  has 
spent  its  particular  force  and  given  way  to  an- 
other social  impulse,  really  a  double  impulse. 
The  boy  likes  his  new  chum  better  than  he  ever 
did  like  a  boy  before,  and  as  for  girls  they  are 
the  newest  thing  in  angels,  just  out;  and  usually 
there  is  some  one  girl  who  certainly  must  have 
wings  attached  somewhere  to  her  airy,  fairy 
form. 

The  confiding  instinct  brings  him  and  his  chum 
together  and  the  pairing  instinct  directs  his  gaze 
toward  some  adorable  "she."  He  wants  a  chum 
because  he  is  now  growing  secretive  and  this  is 
the  outlet  for  his  heart.  He  is  growing  secretive, 
because  he  is  the  possessor  of  newly-awakened 
powers  of  which  he  has  not  yet  gained  control, 
and  he  finds  that  he  is  connected  with  people  and 
affairs  in  a  new  way.  He  is  not  yet  sure  of  him- 
self. His  chum  has  made  him  a  chum  for  the 
same  reason  and  the  two  understand  each  other. 


HIS  CHUMS  103 

He  is  a  new  man  in  a  new  world  and  his  chum 
is  the  same.  There  never  was  another  like  him 
since  the  world  began.  When  one  enters  a  new 
world  it  is  like  trying  to  live  in  a  vacuum  unless 
he  finds  someone  there ;  that  one  is  his  chum  and 
happy  for  him  if  he  finds  some  of  the  older  folk 
lingering  there. 

The  things  they  talk  about  are  the  things  that 
belong  to  that  age — sports,  of  course,  and  what 
they  intend  to  become,  and  their  plans,  and — 
girls.  That  great  day  has  dawned.  Some  new 
powers  are  getting  in  command.  Memory  is  no 
longer  lonesome.  Imagination  is  actively  at 
work.  The  rational  and  deliberative  faculties 
are  in  the  field.  Sentiment  hangs  halos  over  the 
outlying  future. 

Sentiments  crystallise  into  character  very  rap- 
idly. You  look  into  his  eyes  this  morning  and 
you  see  your  boy  no  more,  you  see  a  young  man. 
His  chum  will  put  some  finishing  touches  on  his 
character.  The  mightiest  influence  of  this  period 
may  come  from  that  chum  to  blight  or  bless  him 
forever.  Even  if  they  go  off  to  different  colleges, 
or  separate  for  different  parts  of  the  world,  they 
will  likely  cherish  the  chum  feeling  for  each 
other  all  of  their  lives.  He  who  deftly  guides 
him  in  the  selection  of  his  chum  is  his  benefactor. 
The  boy  must  really  have  two  chums  and  the 
other  must  be — his  father.  But  that  is  a  story  by 
itself. 


XVI 

HIS  HEROES 

A  BOY  is  a  born  hero  worshipper.  That  is  one 
way  he  earns  his  passage  from  little  to  much. 
Nature  starts  him  out  with  a  talent  for  admiring 
and  that  is  coupled  with  the  talent  for  imitating. 
The  rest  of  the  story  tells  itself.  He  grows  like 
that  upon  which  he  keeps  his  admiring  gaze.  The 
first  thing  he  admires  is  physical  power,  for  the 
first  thing  he  needs  is  physical  resources.  One 
boy  when  asked  who  was  the  first  mari  he  wanted 
to  see  when  he  went  to  heaven,  instantly  replied, 
"Goliar."  Goliath  was  the  only  thing  big 
enough  for  him.  The  next  after  the  physical  is 
the  emotional;  then  come  the  intellectual,  the 
ethical  and  the  religious.  These  are  the  unmis- 
takable stages,  though  he  may  be  in  all  three  at 
once. 

His  principles  are  in  the  form  of  persons ;  his 
rules  are  in  his  rulers.  He  never  cares  for 
truth  in  the  abstract;  he  wants  it  in  the  concrete. 
He  has  his  heroes  from  the  time  he  starts  till  he 
is  old  enough  to  be  one  himself;  and  he  is  capable 
of  it,  or  he  could  not  appreciate  heroism  in 
others.  Discovering  and  worshipping  his  he- 
roes is  one  of  the  most  fascinating  things  he  evsr 

104 


HIS  HEROES  105 

does ;  and  one  of  the  most  wholesome,  if  they  are 
of  the  right  kind.  He  is  furnishing  very  inter- 
esting instruction  to  those  who  have  the  over- 
sight of  his  life,  for  he  is  showing  what  is  in  him, 
what  he  is  capable  of  becoming,  and  how  the 
process  is  already  going  on. 

You  can  judge  a  boy  by  the  man  he  admires. 
You  can  gauge  his  possibilities  at  a  given  stage, 
by  the  things  he  appreciates.  You  can  guide  him 
in  the  course  you  want  him  to  take  by  the  inter- 
est he  takes  in  those  who  are  going  that  way. 

His  first  heroes  are  always  men  of  marked 
physical  prowess,  yet  they  always  have  an  influ- 
ence on  his  ethical  nature,  for  better  or  worse. 
He  is  almost  as  apt  to  find  bad  heroes  as  good, 
unless  he  is  given  some  assistance.  The  place 
of  homage  is  to  be  pre-empted  by  his  father,  or 
his  older  brother,  or  someone  near  at  hand,  for 
good;  and  the  one  who  holds  that  place  has  to 
do  something  and  be  busy  at  it  all  the  time.  It 
ought  not  to  be  difficult  to  keep  before  him  ex- 
amples of  prowess  that  are  ethically  worthy  of 
his  adoration.  There  are  plenty  of  them  in  lit- 
erature; plenty  in  real  life.  To  be  sure  he  may 
find  special  fascination  in  the  swaggering,  bully- 
ing fellow  whose  talk  is  bestial  and  degrading, 
and  against  such  he  has  to  be  safeguarded. 

One  of  the  ecstatic  moments  of  my  early  life 
was  one  Sunday  morning  down  at  old  Bullitts- 
burg  church,  as  a  group  of  us  boys  and  men 
were  out  under  the  trees  waiting  for  services  to 


106  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

begin.  I  was  only  nine  years  old.  Tom  Hogan 
and  several  other  young  men  came  riding  up. 
Tom  was  on  a  grey  horse.  Just  as  that  grey 
horse  got  to  the  proper  place  he  began  a  series 
of  demonstrations  that  simply  raised  me  to  an 
ecstasy.  He  reared  up  on  his  hind  legs  and 
started  to  walk  off  like  a  man.  Then  he  de- 
scended, touched  base  and  repeated  the  act.  This 
he  did  again  and  again.  Tom  acted  as  if  he  had 
been  brought  up  on  the  horse's  back;  in  fact 
there  seemed  a  quiet  sympathy  between  the  two. 
When  the  horse  at  last  decided  to  take  up  per- 
manent residence  on  the  ground  and  consented 
to  be  hitched  to  a  tree  and  the  gallant  rider  joined 
our  group,  I  walked  around  him  and  gazed  at  him 
as  at  a  prodigy,  and  listened  to  him  as  to  an  or- 
acle. 

But  the  boy  likes  the  highly  ethical  best  of  all, 
if  it  is  in  the  form  of  noble  prowess  and  chival- 
rous knight  errantry,  provided  his  tastes  have 
not  already  been  perverted.  He  comes  to  a  time 
when  he  adores  intellect,  especially  as  it  takes  the 
form  of  shrewdness  and  skill  and  enables  phys- 
ical weakness  to  triumph  over  brute  force,  as  when 
"Br'er  Babbit"  outwits  the  larger  and  stronger 
animals  or  the  meek-looking  stranger  suddenly 
overpowers  the  bully  by  his  superior  intellect  and 
skill. 

It  takes  him  some  time  to  be  able  to  see  the 
hero  in  the  pure  intellectual  worker,  especially 
one  of  a  certain  type  who  prepares  his  precious 


HIS  HEROES  107 

manuscript  on  a  recondite  subject  and,  when  the 
dog  tears  it  up  and  the  maid  throws  the  scraps  in 
the  fire,  merely  says,  "Tut!  tut!"  in  a  falsetto 
voice.  But  he  likes  the  prowess  of  intellect,  par- 
ticularly when  it  discovers  radium,  constructs 
steamships,  writes  great  stories  and  governs  peo- 
ple. There  must  be  personality  behind  the  in- 
tellect. He  knows  who  is  the  intellectual  master 
in  any  combat  and  knows  how  to  admire  him. 

There  comes  a  time  when  he  has  reverence  for 
the  man  who  stands  for  a  moral  principle,  or 
makes  known  truth  in  the  face  of  moral  or  mental 
peril.  Livingstone  dying  on  his  knees  in  Africa 
is  a  real  hero  to  the  boy;  so  is  Stanley,  the  ex- 
plorer, who  went  to  Livingstone's  relief  in  the 
heart  of  Africa.  He  can  appreciate  Dr.  Kenneth 
McKenzie,  the  brilliant  young  medical  missionary 
in  China,  who  stood  up  with  radiant  face  while  the 
mob  hurled  missiles  at  him,  who  said  he  never 
had  such  a  sense  of  victory  before,  the  earnest  of 
a  victory  later  on. 

It  is  always  a  fortunate  thing  for  a  boy  and 
for  his  father,  if  the  latter  can  satisfy  his  best 
ideals  of  heroism.  It  is  worth  while  for  that 
father  to  spend  his  whole  life  learning  how.  He 
must  begin  with  himself  before  the  boy  is  born. 
In  fact  his  father's  father  must  have  begun  with 
him  before  he  was  born,  just  as  he  now  begins 
with  his  boy  and  prepares  him  to  be  some  coming 
boy's  hero.  A  subtle  process  of  imitation  is  go- 
ing on.  The  boy  walks  like  his  hero,  talks  like 


108  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

him,  wants  to  go  into  the  same  business  with  him, 
is  growing  like  him,  for  better  or  for  worse. 
Fortunate  it  is  if  his  group  of  heroes  also  in- 
cludes some  older  boy  or  young  man.  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  the  perfect  One,  has  made  it 
His  mission  on  earth  to  fill  all  his  aspirations  and 
yearnings.  The  boy  must  know  Him  and  adore 
Him  and  make  it  his  one  aim  to  so  live  as  to  gain 
His  approval.  Then  he  will  grow  like  that  One. 


XVII 

HIS  SWEETHEABTS 

I  USE  the  plural  advisedly.  They  usually  come 
in  an  ascending  series.  After  one  fitful  fever  is 
over  it  is  continued  in  the  next  school  term  or  va- 
cation. He  can  hardly  remember  when  he  first 
began  to  have  sweethearts  and  he  is  almost  sure 
to  acquire  the  fixed  habit. 

Now,  if  memory  is  not  playing  a  trick  on  me, 
spells  of  cardiac  trouble  begin  as  early  as  eight 
and  increase  in  vehemence  till  the  last  fatal  at- 
tack. The  "spells"  are  frequent  and  fleeting, 
furious  and  funny.  Mumps  and  measles  and 
whooping  cough  may  be  evaded,  but  sweethearts 
never.  The  former  attack  him  only  once  each, 
and  if  they  do  not  succeed  in  dragging  him  off 
the  earth  the  first  time,  they  retire  from  the  field 
and  leave  him  in  full  possession,  sometimes  with 
a  few  scars  as  souvenirs  of  the  struggle.  But 
his  troubles  of  the  heart  never  cease  to  attack 
him. 

If  the  first  spell  comes  early,  the  next  comes 
soon  thereafter  and  each  proclaims  its  presence 
to  all  the  members  of  the  household.  They  know 
precisely  what  ails  him.  The  rapt  and  sometimes 
tragic  air,  the  far-away  look  in  his  eye,  the  pre- 
109 


110  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

occupied  manner  in  which  he  engages  in  conver- 
sation, the  way  he  looks  ashamed  or  elated  when 
a  certain  little  girl's  name  is  mentioned — all  are 
symptoms  that  are  not  lost  on  the  experienced 
onlookers.  No  one  spell  can  last  long,  but  it  is 
frightfully  exhausting  while  it  does  last. 

Different  temperaments  modify  the  symptoms, 
but  they  are  substantially  the  same.  The  appe- 
tite falls  off;  a  philosophical  tendency  toward  ab- 
straction shows  itself;  a  certain  uncanny  way  of 
comparing  a  certain  girl,  once  in  a  while,  with 
other  girls  shows  his  state  of  mind.  He  likes  to 
give  that  girl  an  apple,  a  pencil,  anything ;  he  en- 
joys adjusting  her  skates,  coasting  with  her  or 
defending  her  in  some  heroic  way.  He  feels  a 
decided  nausea,  accompanied  by  a  militant  am- 
bition, whenever  he  sees  another  boy  talking  too 
freely  with  her.  He  has  great  ability  in  saying 
to  himself  many  lofty  things  about  her  and  using 
forms  of  expression  that  border  close  on  the 
poetic  for  one  so  young,  and  yet  he  is  stricken 
with  hopeless  aphasia  whenever  he  tries  to  say 
any  of  those  fine  things  to  her. 

You  yourself,  if  man  grown,  remember  when 
the  first  attack  came  on  and  how  severe  it  was. 
You  really  felt  alarmed  about  yourself  and  were 
not  sure  you  would  ever  be  happy  again,  so 
mournful  was  the  delirious  pleasure  and  so  alter- 
nating with  pain.  The  constrictions  around  the 
throat  and  the  stoppages  around  the  heart  seemed 
more  than  could  be  endured.  "The  restless,  un- 


HIS  SWEETHEARTS  111 

satisfied  longing"  would  have  done  credit  to 
Longfellow's  "Evangeline."  Just  where  it  hurt 
the  most  you  were  not  always  sure.  You  loved  to 
write  her  name  and  yours  together  and  mark  off 
the  corresponding  letters  in  both,  then  count  off 
those  left  unmated,  speaking  the  cabalistic  for- 
mula, * 'friendship,  love,  idolise,  hate,"  and  the 
word  that  fell  on  the  last  letter  indicated  her  state 
of  feeling  toward  you.  It  was  a  singular  thing 
that  when  it  came  out  right  you  felt  you  were  se- 
cure and  when  it  came  out  on  the  wrong  word, 
you  would  not  believe  it,  but  laughed  it  off.  It 
was  a  serious  time  for  you,  and  an  anxious  time 
for  the  innocent  bystanders.  You  passed  through 
the  first  series  with  Martha  and  Mary  and  Eunice 
and  Alice,  and  to  your  great  surprise  did  not  die 
a  single  time. 

It  must  have  been  toward  the  end  of  the  first 
series  that  you  began  to  make  use  of  the  episto- 
lary means  of  expression.  You  had  seldom  done 
more  than  gaze  around  at  school  and  see  if  she 
was  there,  look  over  the  top  of  your  book  and 
grin  at  her  in  your  own  fetching  way,  and  use 
other  indirect  means  of  declaring  yourself.  But 
now  you  "take  your  pen  in  hand"  and  "write 
these  few  lines"  to  let  her  know  that  she  is 
sweeter  than  sugar  and  prettier  than  roses  and 
violets,  taken  singly  or  combined,  in  bud,  bloom 
or  in  whole  bouquets. 

You  also  longed  for  an  opportunity  to  tell  her 
in  private  just  what  was  the  matter  with  you. 


112  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

You  began  to  give  your  hair  some  attention,  but 
it  would  never  stay  combed.  You  became  aware 
for  the  first  time  in  your  life  that  your  hair  needed 
combing.  Who  knew  when  you  might  suddenly 
find  yourself  alone  with  her?  And  you  in- 
tended to  be  ready.  You  knew  exactly  what  you 
would  say.  And  one  afternoon,  when  all  the 
boys  and  girls  had  gone  and  you  lingered  around, 
she  came  out  of  the  door  and  you  were  with  her 
at  last.  You  started  off  with  her,  but  felt  sheep- 
ish and,  to  your  great  surprise,  you  had  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  say  and  nothing  to  say  it  with. 
It  had  not  occurred  to  you  that  you  would  lose 
tongue  and  head,  but  that  is  what  happened.  She 
was  provokingly  serene.  It  irritated  you  to  think 
that  she  did  not  discern  your  intent  and  co-oper- 
ate in  a  purpose  which  she  could  not  fail  to  ap- 
prove. "It  looks  like  it  was  going  to  snow,"  you 
ventured,  and  she  began  to  chatter  about  the 
party  she  and  the  other  girls  were  getting  up.  It 
was  already  worse  than  a  snow-storm — it  was  a 
frost.  Your  awkwardness  oppressed  you  all  the 
way  home,  and  you  secretly  resolved  to  try  send- 
ing a  letter. 

In  that  note  you  not  only  expressed  the  most 
exalted  love  that  had,  as  yet,  been  experienced 
by  a  boy,  but  you  distinctly  declared  a  desire  to 
"lick"  any  boy  whose  conduct  was  not  just  to  her 
liking.  You  really  wished  you  might  whip  about 
half  a  dozen  boys,  all  on  her  account,  like  a  knight- 


HIS  SWEETHEARTS  113 

errant  of  the  brave  days  of  old,  fighting  for  his 
lady's  protection  or  to  win  her  smile.  But  your 
nerve  failed  you  when  you  tried  to  hand  her  the 
note  and  someone  near  by  saw  your  face  turn  a 
fiery  hue.  Then  you  revealed  your  state  of  mind 
to  a  small  boy  friend  who  volunteered  to  deliver 
the  note  and  bring  back  a  reply.  But  that  was  a 
grand  blunder,  from  the  standpoint  of  your  peace. 
That  boy  handed  his  coat  to  your  sister  to  hold 
for  him,  while  he  ran  a  race  with  another  boy, 
the  note  dropped  out  of  his  pocket,  your  sister 
picked  it  up  and  read  it  and  that  was  the  begin- 
ning of  a  drop  in  the  temperature.  Fun  for  the 
whole  family  evolved  from  that  accident.  The 
note  was  delivered,  not  by  the  boy,  but  by  your 
sister,  and  she  brought  back  a  similar  note 
written  by  the  dear  girl,  comparing  you  very 
favourably  not  only  to  a  first-class  brand  of  sac- 
charine matter,  but  to  red  roses  and  blue  violets, 
and  she  had  a  rhyme  in  it ;  all  of  which  would  have 
been  highly  creditable  to  her  and  heaven  to  you, 
if  it  had  come  in  time  and  under  other  circum- 
stances. It  was  too  late;  the  tide  was  going  out. 
You  tried  to  laugh,  but  it  was  more  like  the  mer- 
riment of  a  mummy.  You  almost  fainted.  You 
felt  as  you  did  that  time  when  you  went  behind 
a  tree  and  experimented  with  an  old  cigar  and 
were  cured  of  the  smoking  habit  before  it  was 
formed.  The  sudden  change  in  your  feelings 
toward  that  girl  and  the  resentment  with  which 


114  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

you  viewed  all  creation  were  a  study.  You  dis> 
covered  that  very  minute,  that  you  didn't  like 
her  anyhow.  The  charm  was  broken.  You 
looked  around  and  grinned  just  as  you  did  years 
afterward  when  you  took  laughing  gas  at  college, 
and  suddenly  "came  to."  You  were  not  sorry  to 
be  free  once  more  and  to  go  on  about  your  busi- 
ness of  being  a  boy,  which  had  been  interrupted 
by  this  temporary  delirium. 

During  one  of  these  attacks  you  began  the  ac- 
cumulation  of  poetry  in  her  interest  and,  if  you 
had  only  known  it,  she  was  gathering  mementos  at 
the  same  time.  You  remember  how  superior  she 
seemed  to  your  own  sister  whom  another  boy  con- 
sidered the  most  bewitching  creature  that  ever 
breathed.  You  may  also  recall  how  you  softened 
into  meekness  and  awkwardness  in  her  presence 
so  very  unlike  your  usual  unrestrained  freedom 
of  speech  and  action. 

But  when  you  were  about  sixteen,  it  was  most 
severe.  It  tangled  itself  up  with  school  and  busi- 
ness and  chums,  and  seemed  the  final  number  in 
the  last  series.  When  it  was  all  over,  you  came 
out  with  the  wholesome  notion  that  there  were 
others,  attractive  and  worthy,  and  you  became  all 
the  better  fitted  to  settle  down  in  later  years,  with 
the  one  of  your  mature  choice. 

Singular  how  a  boy  would  rather  talk  with  any- 
body else  in  the  world  about  such  a  matter  than 
with  his  father  or  mother — unless— unless  they 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  sharing  in  all  his  expe- 


HIS  SWEETHEAETS  115 

riences  and  of  being  the  refuge  and  reinforce- 
ment to  which  he  is  accustomed  to  come  about 
everything.  Thrice  fortunate  is  the  boy  who  has 
such  help  from  them. 


XVHI 

FORMING  HIS  HABITS 

A  BOY  has  to  have  quite  a  number  of  habits,  if 
he  ever  expects  to  be  much  of  a  boy  or  to  become 
a  man.  His  body  needs  the  habit  of  turning  food 
into  blood  and  then  blood  into  boy.  His  mind 
needs  the  habit  of  turning  sights  and  sounds  into 
truth  and  character.  His  memory  is  to  be  merely 
the  good  mental  habit  of  holding  on  to  what  he 
has  learned.  His  morals,  at  any  time,  are  very 
largely  the  sum  of  his  habits  in  learning  and 
practising  truth  and  right. 

When  nature  equipped  him  with  the  power  of 
forming  habits  she  did  him  a  great  kindness; 
for  without  the  reinforcement  they  bring,  he 
would  be  no  farther  along  the  day  he  dies  than 
the  day  he  was  born.  Habit  is  that  power  which 
makes  it  easier  to  do  a  thing  the  second  than  the 
first  time,  still  easier  each  subsequent  time,  till, 
by  and  by,  the  thing  almost  does  itself. 

If  it  were  not  for  habit,  he  would,  each  day, 
have  to  learn  again  how  to  talk  and  walk ;  would 
have  to  get  acquainted  again  with  his  father  and 
mother  and  friends  and  the  contents  of  his  pock- 
ets, and  with  his  books  every  morning.  But  that 
is  too  dismal  a  subject  to  dwell  on. 

116 


FOEMING  HIS  HABITS  117 

Habits  have  a  way  of  increasing  in  power,  with 
a  cumulative  effect,  till  there  is  scarcely  a  limit 
to  what  they  may  enable  one  to  do.  Eobert  Hou- 
don's  wonderful  memory  was  the  result  of  habit. 
He  trained  that  memory  to  retain  everything  he 
saw,  till  after  only  a  few  moments  in  a  large  li- 
brary, he  could  leave  the  room  and  give  the  title 
of  each  volume,  the  shelf  it  was  on  and  its  dis- 
tance from  the  end  of  the  shelf.  He  travelled 
over  the  world,  giving  exhibitions  of  his  remark- 
able mental  habit,  called  memory. 

It  is  through  habit  men  learn  to  do  things  that 
are,  at  first,  disagreeable,  even  wrong,  without 
feeling  it.  Mr.  George  Staunton  saw  a  murderer, 
in  India,  who,  in  order  to  retain  his  life  and  his 
caste  too,  submitted  to  the  horrible  penalty  of 
sleeping  seven  years  on  a  bed  whose  top  was 
studded  with  iron  points,  made  as  sharp  as  they 
could  be  without  breaking  the  flesh.  He  had  al- 
ready served  five  years  and  his  skin  was  like  the 
hide  of  a  rhinocerous,  but  he  told  Mr.  Staunton 
he  had  learned  to  like  the  bed  and  he  thought  he 
should  continue  to  use  it  from  choice.  A  pirate 
tells  how  his  conscience  made  a  hell  for  him  after 
his  first  murder;  then  he  killed  another  man  with 
less  discomfort  and  he  kept  on  till  he  could  lie 
down  by  the  side  of  his  victim  and  sleep  soundly. 
So  the  matter  of  habit  has  its  horrible,  as  well  as 
its  helpful,  side. 

It  really  may  have  a  deterrent  effect  on  a  boy 
to  know,  in  advance,  that  he  can  get  used  to  lying 


118  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

and  drinking  and  stealing  and  doing  every  kind  of 
badness,  and  becomes  more  and  more  skilful  and 
heartless  and  inured  to  it  through  the  help  of 
habit.  That  may  prompt  him  to  keep  his  eye  on 
the  dangerous  thing.  And  he  can  grow  more 
lazy  and  shiftless  and  cruel  and  avaricious,  when 
he  once  starts  at  it,  till  he  becomes  a  bundle  of 
vicious  habits.  Yet  he  can  start  in  the  right 
lines  and  make  habits  that  will  be  both  a  pro- 
peller and  a  protection  to  him.  Dr.  John  A. 
Broadus  used  to  say  to  his  students:  "Practice 
makes  perfect — bad  practice  makes  perfectly 
bad."  Make  good  habits  and  you  can  make  good. 

But  a  boy  has  to  have  help  in  initiating  his 
habits,  for  he  is  likely  to  start  some  wrong  ones. 
Here  again  we  see  that  God-given  instinct  of  imi- 
tation at  work.  He  gets  the  muscular  habit  of 
walking  from  seeing  others  walk  and  from  the 
guidance  and  support  of  hands  that  show  him  how 
to  take  the  first  step.  He  will  need  some  habits, 
after  awhile,  that  he  doesn't  now  know  he  will 
need,  and  he  will  not  start  those  habits  unless 
someone  gets  him  at  it  in  a  directive  way.  He  is 
almost  sure  to  get  some  to  going  which  he  will  find 
a  great  injury  to  him,  but  he  doesn't  know  it  now; 
and  the  most  serious  thing  about  it  is  that  he  will 
find  it  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of  them. 

It  does  seem  easy,  sometimes,  to  give  up  good 
habits,  while  the  correction  of  bad  ones  is  one 
of  the  hardest  things  ever  attempted.  It  seems 
no  task  to  grow  crooked  teeth,  but  if  you  under- 


FORMING  HIS  HABITS  119 

take  to  straighten  them  the  dentist  will  have  to 
keep  all  kinds  of  machinery  in  your  aching  mouth, 
for  weary  weeks.  But  the  straightening  of 
crooked  teeth  and  pigeon  toes  and  hent  backs  and 
crossed  eyes  is  easy  compared  with  reforming 
hahits  when  they  are  deformed.  Deforming  good 
habits  is  much  easier. 

Those  who  understand  the  workings  of  brain 
and  nerves  tell  us  that  when  we  think,  a  certain 
amount  of  energy  is  discharged  in  the  brain,  and 
that  energy  goes  tearing  through  the  nerve  tis- 
sues making  a  path  as  it  goes,  and  the  next  dis- 
charge of  energy  will  follow  that  same  path,  till 
all  of  it  flows  that  way,  unless  we  prevent  it. 
Habits  make  roads  for  thoughts  and  feelings  and 
purposes,  and  roads  should  always  run  in  the 
right  direction  and  be  built  of  the  right  material. 
Even  when  a  good  road  has  been  built,  some 
wrong  thought  may  send  a  discharge  of  energy 
in  the  wrong  direction  and  quickly  cut  out  a  new 
path  for  the  feet  of  habit.  One  really  has  to  be 
keeping  up  his  roads  all  his  life.  A  habit  will 
live  forever,  unless  it  is  interfered  with.  As 
none  of  us  has  ever  failed  to  get  some  wrong  ones 
started,  we  have  the  perpetual  task  of  forming 
good  ones  and  reforming  bad  ones. 

The  great  habit-forming  time  of  a  boy  is  from 
birth  till  twelve.  The  golden  age  of  memory  is 
from  ten  to  fifteen.  Dr.  Hawies  says  that  if  one 
wants  to  adapt  his  muscular  and  nervous  habits 
to  the  playing  of  the  violin,  he  must  begin  before 


120  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

he  is  ten.  I  undertook  it  after  I  was  thirty,  and 
soon  quit.  At  twelve  a  boy  comes  under  the 
reign  of  law. 

Tendencies  and  activities  crystallise  into  hab- 
its very  rapidly.  All  the  time  that  elapses  be- 
tween the  doing  of  a  thing  the  first  time  and  the 
second  is  engaged  in  giving  a  set  in  that  direc- 
tion. In  the  fall,  the  beginner  at  swimming  bids 
good-bye  to  the  water,  with  a  great  awkwardness, 
bnt  is  surprised  the  next  summer,  to  find  that  he 
has  made  decided  progress  since  the  fall  before, 
though  he  has  not  been  in  water  except  in  a  bath- 
tub. The  growth  has  been  in  the  direction  of  the 
bent  given  to  his  muscles  and  nerves.  Dr.  James 
reminds  us  that  we  learn  to  swim  in  winter  and 
skate  in  summer. 

No  one  knows  when  some  emergency  may  arise 
that  will  require  all  the  stores  of  strength  se- 
cured through  the  aid  of  habit.  Down  in  Ludlow, 
Kentucky,  a  deaf  old  man  was  crossing  the  rail- 
road track  when  he  looked  up  and  saw  an  engine 
coming  upon  him.  The  engineer  had  seen  him 
as  they  came  around  the  curve,  had  given  him 
the  signal,  and  when  he  saw  that  the  old  man 
had  not  heard  it,  had  put  on  the  brakes,  but  was 
not  able  to  stop  in  time.  When  that  old  man  saw 
the  engine  at  his  side  and  almost  felt  the  cow- 
catcher against  his  feet,  he  didn't  have  time  to 
get  out  of  the  way  by  walking  across  or  turning 
back.  As  quick  as  a  flash,  he  turned  a  hand- 
spring backwards  and  escaped  with  a  few  harmless 


FORMING  HIS  HABITS  121 

bruises.  He  was  able  to  do  that  because  the  mus- 
cles had  formed  the  habit  of  doing  such  things 
years  before.  Every  good  habit  the  boy  can 
form  he  will  need  either  in  the  ordinary  duties 
or  the  unanticipated  emergencies  of  life. 

It  is  mental  habit  that  directs  muscular  actions. 
Moral  habits  make  important  decisions  instantly. 
Questions  have  to  be  decided,  not  after  careful 
thought,  but  without  thought ;  the  cherished  senti- 
ments and  the  usual  ways  of  doing  will  prompt 
the  decision.  No  one  is  swept  off  his  feet  by  a 
sudden  temptation.  He  falls  because  he  has  been 
in  the  habit  of  giving  hospitality  to  wrong  ideas. 
The  defaulting  cashier  had  been  a  mental  de- 
faulter before  he  did  the  overt  act. 

The  great  tasks  of  the  mind  can  be  accomplished 
because  the  mind  has  the  habit  of  accomplishing 
all  its  tasks ;  it  can  lift  its  heaviest  loads  because 
it  is  in  the  business  of  lifting  loads. 

The  great  value  of  the  concrete  example  cannot 
be  ignored.  Clear  and  discriminating  teaching 
also  is  essential.  No  one  else  can  form  his  habits 
for  him.  Mr.  Dooley  says :  "  You  can  lead  a  boy 
to  college,  but  you  can't  make  him  think. "  Yet 
his  intelligent  and  enthusiastic  co-operation  can 
usually  be  secured,  in  the  formation  of  desirable 
habits,  if  someone  studies  his  needs  and  his  nature 
and  helps  the  boy,  as  if  his  own  life  depended  on 
it. 


XIX 

CULTIVATING   HIS   WILL 

THE  culture  of  his  will  means  the  culture  of  the 
whole  boy,  means  more  than  does  the  culture  of 
any  one  other  part  of  him.  "We  can  point  to  all  the 
magnificent  failures  we  care  to  think  of  and  they 
have  everything  else  but  will.  It  means  the  power 
to  decide,  to  determine,  and  to  stick  to  the  determi- 
nation. Men  may  have  genius,  as  Coleridge  had, 
and  be  as  inefficient  as  he.  They  may  have  intel- 
lect, and  yet  lack  the  organising  and  vitalising 
power  of  will.  If  the  boy  has  no  will  power  to 
start  with  we  may  dismiss  him  at  once  as  a  hope- 
less case.  If  he  has  a  weak  will  it  may  be  trained ; 
if  he  has  a  strong  will  it  must  be  trained.  The 
feeble  will  may  be  reinforced  till  it  acquires  resist- 
less force ;  the  strong  will  may  evaporate  in  force- 
less wilfullness.  Both  kinds  must  be  taken  in 
hand  and  set  right  and  set  to  going  right. 

In  his  culture  every  boy  ought  to  have  hard- 
ships. Judge  Lindsay  says,  "The  best  hope  I  can 
have  for  any  American  boy  is  that  he  will  have  a 
hard  time  rather  than  a  good  time,  infinite  diffi- 
culty, rather  than  ease."  Someone  has  said 
that  "  character  consists  of  a  perfectly  educated 
will"  and  the  statement  is  not  untrue,  though  it 

122 


CULTIVATING  HIS  WILL  123 

may  not  include  all  the  truth.  It  requires  a  judg- 
ment to  weigh,  a  conscience  to  recognise  and  de- 
mand the  right  and  a  will  to  determine  and  stay 
by  the  right.  In  the  light  of  that  truth  it  seems 
passing  strange  that,  when  we  have  arranged 
courses  of  study  for  the  culture  of  all  the  other 
faculties  of  the  soul,  we  never  have  gotten  up  one 
for  the  scientific  study  and  the  artistic  culture  of 
the  will?  Perhaps  it  is  not  so  deplorable  after 
all,  because,  while  the  studies  are  prepared  for 
other  faculties  than  the  will,  it  requires  the  will 
to  push  through  them  and  that  is  the  very  best  dis- 
cipline it  can  get.  The  hard  struggle  most  of  us 
have  been  called  on  to  make  from  the  beginning 
has  been  a  better  course  than  any  one  could  devise 
in  an  artificial  way.  It  is  claimed  that  New  Eng- 
land farmers  have  revelled  in  the  hard  conditions 
found  on  that  "stern  and  rock-bound  coast"  and 
back  in  the  interior,  and  have  been  so  satisfied  to 
get  less  money  but  more  men  from  the  contests, 
that  they  have  been  slow  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  advantages  of  the  scientific  farming  of  recent 
years:  they  don't  like  to  miss  the  discipline  that 
comes  with  the  struggle  against  hard  conditions. 
But  the  time  seems  at  hand  when  methods  must 
be  deliberately  planned  for  the  culture  of  the  will. 
It  is  a  live  question.  Hardships  are  growing  less 
hard.  Few  duties  are  required  of  a  boy  in  the 
home  as  compared  with  those  he  used  to  be  called 
upon  to  perform.  Boys  are  left  to  themselves 
more.  They  live  in  a  more  complex  environment, 


124  THAT  -BOY  OF  YOUES 

amid  scenes  and  activities  that  make  a  confused 
impression  on  them  and  do  not  attract  them  to 
any  definite  line  of  willed  action.  Life  is  system- 
atised  and  they  find  themselves  in  the  grip  of  an 
order  of  things  that  often  relieve  them  of  the  need 
of  initiative.  Machines  instead  of  muscles  do  the 
work.  They  are  called  on  to  watch  a  machine  in- 
stead of  putting  will  power  into  their  muscles. 
Very  few  muscles  are  called  into  use  in  factory  or 
office ;  some  are  never  used  at  all,  but  the  pull  on 
the  nerves  is  steady  and  devitalising.  The  will 
is  atrophied.  Life  is  on  the  surface  and  the  virtue 
of  thoroughness,  which  means  throughness,  doesn't 
seem  necessary.  The  era  of  machines  is  an  era 
of  shrewdness  and  not  of  strength. 

It  is  a  time  when  boyhood  misses  the  authority 
so  distinctly  felt  in  other  days  and  the  will  grows 
without  steadfastness.  There  is  no  strong  author- 
ity above  and  controlling,  thereby  serving  the  pur- 
pose of  director  and  exemplar. 

I  am  not  pessimistic  in  pointing  out  the  undesir- 
able characteristics  of  to-day,  in  their  relation  to 
the  culture  of  the  will,  the  keystone  of  boyhood 
and  manhood,  but  I  am  frankly  telling  the  truth 
in  order  to  ask  all  who  have  charge  of  the  boys 
of  to-day  to  see  to  it  that  their  wills  have  the  train- 
ing which  it  is  so  difficult  to  gain  without  intelli- 
gent planning. 

The  conditions  that  tend  to  impair  a  boy's  will 
require  that  he  have  power  of  will  to  meet  them. 
That  much  more  will  must  be  cultivated  in  him. 


CULTIVATING  HIS  WILL  125 

The  late  Sam  Jones  said  that  a  man  needs  "a 
backbone  like  a  telegraph  pole,"  and  he  referred 
to  will  power,  or,  at  least,  to  one  phase  of  it.  The 
boy  has  not  only  the  tremendous  task  of  getting 
a  good  strong  will  in  the  face  of  influences  that  are 
undermining  it  in  a  very  subtle  way — so  subtle 
that  he  would  usually  resent  the  intimation  that 
there  were  such  influences  at  all — but  he  has  to 
learn  to  choose  the  thing  that,  in  each  case,  is  what 
he  needs  rather  than  what  he  desires,  or  what  will 
secure  future  good  rather  than  present  gratifi- 
cation. No  boy  knows  how  to  do  that  till  he  is 
taught.  The  boy  has  to  get  his  judgment  working 
clearly  and  reliably.  He  has  to  get  his  sense  of 
right  so  unerring  that  it  will  choose  the  thing 
which,  perhaps,  he  does  not  now  wish,  and  do  it 
because  it  is  better  for  him,  or  will  be  better  for 
him  in  the  long  run. 

These  decisions  which  he  makes  often  have  to 
be  the  result  of  the  unconscious  sentiments  and 
reflections  that  have  been  gathering  in  his  soul. 
Take  into  account  another  fact — that  he  is,  and 
must  ever  be,  unconscious  of  many  of  the  influences 
that  determine  his  decisions  and  shape  his  life, 
and  you  feel  that  there  is  peril  due  to  his  helpless- 
ness which  calls  for  all  the  assistance  you  can 
render.  There  is  nothing  more  satanic  in  our 
commercial  life  than  the  disposition  to  exploit 
childhood  for  revenue.  The  weaknesses  and  the 
powers  of  innocence  have  not  escaped  the  cupidity 
of  commercialism,  as  it  has  exploited  the  play 


126  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

instinct  and  the  sex  impulse  and  all  social  senti- 
ments to  enervate  the  will  by  throwing  over  child- 
hood and  youth  the  spell  of  false  and  vicious 
pleasures. 

Another  appeal  to  men  to  help  the  boy  get  a  true 
and  strong  will  is  that  the  unformed  creature  has 
to  take  a  broad  sweep  of  life  and  make  decisions 
at  sixteen  and  eighteen  that  are  to  determine  his 
character  and  standing  at  sixty  and  eighty,  in- 
stead of  waiting  till  his  maturity  to  decide. 

Now  let  us  make  a  brief  summary  of  the  chief 
things  the  will  does.  It  must  determine  on  what 
the  judgment  decides;  it  must  drive  each  power 
in  its  own  specific  work;  it  must  get  to  working 
automatically,  with  the  support  of  all  the  other 
powers,  so  that  it  will  take  its  decisions  from 
habit;  it  must  stand  for  what  is  good  for  one 
rather  than  for  what  one  prefers.  When  properly 
trained  it  is  not  only  indispensable,  but  it  is  the 
best  thing  one  has.  Persistence  is  considered,  by 
common  consent,  equal  to  any  other  power  we 
have  in  value,  and  that  is  a  function  of  the  will. 
Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller  and  the  famous  Eev.  Dr. 
John  A.  Broadus  were  talking  and  the  prince  of 
preachers  asked  the  captain  of  industry  what  he 
regarded  the  reason  for  the  largest  number  of  fail- 
ures among  young  men  and  Mr.  Rockefeller  re- 
plied, without  hesitation,  "The  lack  of  the  ability 
to  stick  to  a  thing."  Von  Moltke's  habit  was  to 
" First  weigh,  then  venture,"  and  never  turn  back. 


CULTIVATING  HIS  WILL  127 

There  are  several  things  that  must  be  done  for 
the  boy,  in  order  to  develop  his  will : 

First — it  must  be  protected  from  disease,  for 
there  are  diseases  of  the  will  as  of  the  stomach,  or 
blood.  Physical  laziness  is  a  disease  of  the  will. 
He  must  have  work  as  a  preventive  of  this,  if  for 
no  other  reason.  A  large  Dumber  of  the  ailments 
are  only  mental  and  any  ^e  who  can  reach  the 
will,  with  almost  any  kind  of  stimulus,  can  cure 
them.  The  extraordinary  cures  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much  were  almost  all  a  treatment  of  the 
will  for  its  diseases.  But  effective  protection  is 
accomplished  through  active  assertion  of  the  will. 
That  is  secured  through — 

Second — Authority.  An  authoritative  direction 
of  the  boy's  life  is  just  as  important  as  his  life,  no 
less,  no  more.  That  authority  must  express  itself 
more  in  directive  than  in  corrective  ways.  But 
he  must  not  mistake  that  higher  will,  it  may  be  of 
his  father  and  mother ;  it  may  be  of  his  God.  Dr. 
G.  Stanley  Hall,  a  man  who  has  been  in  the  fore- 
front of  American  students  ofechildhood  and  espe- 
cially of  adolescence,  says:  "Will  culture,  for 
boys,  is  rarely  as  thorough  as  it  should  be,  with- 
out more  or  less  flogging. "  If  flogging  is  re- 
quired, at  any  time,  in  the  discharge  of  the  sacred 
function  of  parenthood,  then  the  painful  duty  is 
not  to  be  evaded.  As  already  said,  a  higher  will 
to  which  his  must  bow  is  essential  to  the  steady 
and  rational  growth  of  his  will.  No  human  an- 


128  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

thority  is  effective  that  does  not  lead  to  a  respect 
for  divine  authority. 

Third — his  will  must  have  manual  training,  as 
expression  and  outlet  and  reactive  discipline. 
There  is  not  a  faculty  of  the  soul  that  does  not 
get  discipline  through  manual  training;  but,  as 
strengthener  and  trainer  of  the  will,  it  excels. 
You  have  to  have  the  will  to  believe,  the  will  to 
remember,  the  will  to  achieve  and  the  will  to  dig. 
Manual  labour  involves  hardship  and  that  is  neces- 
sary to  discipline.  It  co-ordinates  all  the  physical 
with  the  psychical  and  that  gives  the  psychical  a 
complete  outlet.  Exactness  in  work  requires,  and 
corresponds  to,  truthfulness  in  thought  and 
speech.  It  is  a  soft  and  silly  sympathy  that 
shields  a  boy  from  hardship. 


XX 

BEING   HIS   OWN    MAN 

EVERY  boy  looks  forward,  with  special  delight, 
to  the  time  when  he  will  be  his  own  man,  as  he  likes 
to  phrase  it.  By  that  he  means  the  time  when  he 
can  do  as  he  wishes,  as  the  grown  folks  do,  and 
not  be  responsible  to  anybody  but  himself;  when 
he  can  quit  going  to  school  and  running  on  errands, 
if  he  wishes.  All  of  us  were  once  at  that  stage  and 
it  is  not  wrong  to  want  to  be  capable  of  directing 
our  own  lives.  The  boy  may  love  his  father  and 
mother  as  he  should,  but  he  wants  to  be  free  from 
their  control,  just  as  they  are  free  from  the  control 
of  their  parents. 

If  he  doesn't  know  it  at  first,  he  has  to  learn 
that  he  can't  become  his  own  man  by  simply  pass- 
ing out  from  under  the  control  of  his  parents,  but 
he  must  come  under  the  control  of  his  own  well- 
prepared  judgment  and  will  and  conscience. 
When  he  reaches  the  age  for  taking  himself  out  of 
the  hands  of  his  parents,  just  as  they  once  reached 
a  similar  age,  he  should  have  been  so  trained  in  the 
mastery  of  himself  that  he  is  ready  for  the  new 
responsibility.  There  is  no  safety  in  freedom, 
without  self-control.  Unless  he  has  been  given 
little  tasks  in  self -direction  all  along,  and  more 

129 


130  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

and  more,  as  he  got  used  to  it,  he  will  have  too 
big  a  task  on  his  hands  all  at  once.  The  best  thing 
his  father  and  mother  ever  do  for  him  is  to  teach 
him  to  get  along  without  them. 

Many  a  boy  is,  in  fact,  wiser  than  his  parents 
and  is  so  recognised  before  he  is  old  enough  to  be 
set  free  from  the  law  of  obedience,  but  it  is  not  a 
good  thing  to  let  him  know  that  they  think  him 
wiser.  Before  he  is  really  his  own  man  two  things 
are  necessary.  He  must  reject  every  other  mas- 
ter; he  must  secure  positive  and  personal  control 
of  every  power  of  his  body  and  mind.  Three 
rivals  will  dispute  his  right. 

One  rival  will  be  some  strong  personality  in  the 
form  of  a  boy  or  some  other  person  who  will  so 
appeal  to  his  weaknesses,  or  even  to  his  good 
traits,  as  to  get  the  ascendency  over  him.  If  that 
boy  controls  him,  for  better  or  worse,  he  is  not  his 
own  man.  Another  rival  is  public  sentiment,  in 
the  form  of  the  " bunch"  or  "gang"  with  which  he 
goes.  A  boy  will  help  make  laws  for  the  crowd, 
without  feeling  the  need  of  any  discipline  for  him- 
self and  yet  he  is  not  his  own  man  as  long  as  he 
allows  those  laws  to  dominate  his  private  life. 

His  other  rival  is  found  on  the  inside  of  himself, 
among  the  passions  and  impulses  and  fancies 
which  are  likely  to  take  the  reins  of  government  in 
hand  any  minute.  A  hot  temper  may  be  one  of 
those  rivals.  When  he  is  controlled  by  temper  or 
jealousy  or  envy,  when  he  lets  any  vulgar  passion 
run  away  with  him,  that  becomes  his  master.  The 


BEING  HIS  OWN  MAN  131 

effect  of  this  is  to  weaken  his  will,  confuse  his 
judgment  and  dull  his  conscience.  If  he  does  not 
acquire  such  mastery  of  himself  by  the  time  he  is 
twenty-two,  he  is  almost  sure  to  become  a  waif,  the 
plaything  of  his  own  moods  or  of  exterior  influ- 
ences. 

There  is  a  certain  kind  of  false  pride  which  often 
takes  command  of  a  boy.  I  frankly  confess  it  was 
the  case  with  me  when  I  learned  to  chew  tobacco — 
a  habit  that  lasted  only  about  two  weeks,  thanks  to 
the  pain  it  gave  me  one  day  when  I  was  ploughing. 
When  a  boy  with  yellow  stain  on  his  fingers  walks 
into  an  office  and  asks  for  a  position,  it  takes  the 
boss  only  about  two  seconds  to  gather  all  the  evi- 
dence he  needs  that  the  boy  can't  be  trusted,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  an  appetite  is  in  command 
and  may  spoil  his  work  at  any  minute.  Mr. 
Luther  Burbank  will  not  employ  any  one  who 
smokes  cigarettes,  because  that  habit  prevents  the 
control  over  his  nerves  necessary  for  the  delicate 
work  of  cultivating  and  training  plants. 

A  man  was  about  to  offer  a  very  important  po- 
sition to  a  young  man,  and  they  chanced  to  ride 
together  on  the  cars.  The  young  man  was  asked, 
by  some  travellers,  to  engage  in  a  game  of  cards 
in  which  they  put  up  a  small  stake,  and  he  ac- 
cepted. The  employer  did  not  make  the  offer, 
because  he  knew  that  any  one  who  engaged  in 
gambling  was  not  his  own  master  and  would  be 
wrecked  some  day. 

When  a  boy  becomes  his  own  man  he  has  to  take 


132  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

in  hand  a  good  many  things  that  belong  to  him- 
self. One  is  his  imagination,  for  instance,  and  its 
control  is  no  easy  task.  He  must  know  when  to 
turn  it  loose,  which  way  to  send  it,  when  to  recall 
it  and  how  to  harness  it  up  to  heavy  work.  All 
his  other  powers  must  be  in  hand,  ready  for  or- 
ders. 

Now  a  boy  naturally  prefers  to  control  others 
rather  than  himself.  Thinking  he  is  right,  he  is 
not  apt  to  single  himself  out  for  any  disciplinary 
treatment  and  he  usually  regards  enforced  obedi- 
ence to  those  who  are  over  him  as  all  the  dis- 
cipline he  needs,  which  means  that  the  task  of 
self-control  must  be  set  by  another.  Boys  form 
laws  and  by-laws  for  their  clubs,  but  they  don't 
aim  at  discipline  in  the  interest  of  self-control, 
though  they  may  gain  it,  as  they  often  do,  uncon- 
sciously, through  contact  with  each  other  and 
obedience  to  their  own  laws;  they  gain  it  uncon- 
sciously and  without  aiming  at  it,  mind  you. 

And  he  has  another  drawback.  He  is  in  a  state 
of  unstable  equilibrium;  he  has  to  learn  himself 
as  his  new  traits  come  out.  Then  he  is  apt  to 
drop  everything  else  to  get  acquainted  with  the 
latest  comer  among  his  attributes ;  while  he  is  do- 
ing that,  something  unexpected  is  apt  to  take 
place.  The  result  is  turmoil  and  seeming  defeat. 
But  he  mounts  again  and  is  in  the  saddle.  Thus 
he  learns  by  experience.  He  is  not  perfect,  but 
he  is  aiming  to  be,  in  his  imperfect  way,  and  there 
are  some  things  he  is  trying  to  do.  Dr.  Broadus 


BEING  HIS  OWN  MAN  133' 

used  to  say  that  a  good  student  was  one  who  could 
take  up  his  studies  when  he  would  rather  not, 
could  go  on  with  them  when  he  would  rather  stop 
and  could  stop  when  he  would  rather  go  on.  In 
other  words,  he  could  make  himself  do  what  he 
ought  to  do,  whether  he  wanted  to  do  it  or  not. 
Such  a  student  is  his  own  man. 

A  good  test  of  self-command  is  one's  ability  to 
fix  and  hold  one's  attention  to  a  given  matter  as 
long  as  one  wishes  and  then  as  long  as  one  ought. 
A  boy  can't  be  his  own  man  without  first  get- 
ting control  of  himself.  That  means  control  over 
his  body,  so  as  to  conserve  its  strength,  prevent 
spoliation  of  its  power  and  increase  both  its  phys- 
ical and  moral  value.  It  means  that  he  must  keep 
its  powers  up  to  its  highest.  He  is  not  his  body's 
master,  unless  he  keeps  it  clean  and  knows  how 
to  relax  and  rest — knows  how  to  take  himself 
when  those  curious  and  rapid  chemical  changes 
take  place  in  the  body  which  compel  an  instant  re- 
adjustment of  himself  to  his  task.  He  must  be 
master  of  his  muscles  and  imagination  and  his 
ideals.  Knowledge  of  his  sex-nature  and  its  mis- 
sion is  essential  to  self-control. 

To  summarise  the  suggestions  implied  in  the 
foregoing: 

First — he  will  never  become  his  own  man  truly, 
unless,  for  a  long  time,  he  is  somebody  else's  boyt 
owned  and  directed  by  him  or  them,  with  a  view 
to  becoming  his  own.  He  will  not  be  apt  to  ac- 
quire the  power  of  self-direction,  unless  he  is 


134  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

given  a  start  in  the  right  direction  and  taught 
to  steer  himself  as  he  goes.  His  parents'  hands 
are  the  two  hanks  of  the  stream  that  prescribe 
the  direction  in  which  he  must  row,  but  they  must 
never  do  his  rowing  for  him.  By  and  by  he  may 
choose  another  channel  for  his  life  and  guide  him- 
self. When  they  leave  his  life  like  an  unbanked 
river  to  flow  into  any  morass  that  invites  it,  they 
do  so  on  pain  of  dire  disaster. 

His  nature  demands,  even  though  he  does  not 
always  voluntarily  recognise  the  need,  that  he 
should  be  authoritatively  directed  in  the  early 
stages  of  his  life.  If  direction  is  given  in  the 
right  spirit,  he  usually  receives  it  with  special 
pleasure.  The  reins  of  authority  must  be  held 
slightly  taut,  so  that  he  will  feel  the  lightest 
pressure  and  have  a  chance  to  become  a  fellow- 
labourer  with  those  in  authority  over  him.  Thus 
he  learns. 

Second — he  must  learn,  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment,  that  the  authority  of  the  parent  is  de- 
rived from  the  One  from  whom  all  authority 
comes,  and  that,  when  he  is  released  from  that 
of  the  parent,  he  must  deal  directly  and  personally 
with  the  original  Father,  as  the  parents  did,  or 
better  than  they  did.  In  releasing  him  from  their 
control,  they  are  simply  passing  him  over  to  the 
One  from  whom  they  have  been  receiving  all  their 
authority  and  for  whom  they  have  been  preparing 
him.  If  he  is  really  ready  for  that  transfer,  he 
has  learned  from  them  how  to  direct  himself  un- 


BEING  HIS  OWN  MAN  135 

der  that  higher  One,  through  the  experiences  he 
has  had  and  the  instructions  received. 

Third — parents  must  lead  him  into  those  ex- 
periences without  which  he  can  never  acquire  self- 
control,  by  restraining  themselves  and  leaving 
him  room  to  exercise  his  powers  of  choice  and 
invention.  His  free  powers  must  be  utilised  in 
the  tasks  assigned  to  him.  David  said,  "Thy 
gentleness  hath  made  great."  In  everything  in 
which  man's  interests  are,  God  has  restrained 
Himself,  and  left  us  something  to  do  and  room 
in  which  to  do  it.  That  is  the  only  way  to  reach 
the  kingship  of  self-control  and  the  boy  is  en- 
titled to  be  led  along  that  way. 


XXI 

THE   BOY  PEODIGY 

A  BOY  wonder  may  still  be  found,  here  and 
there,  but  I  am  not  bringing  a  charge  to  that  ef- 
fect against  any  boy  of  my  acquaintance.  There 
have  been  such  in  the  past,  there  will  be  in  the 
future,  and  we  have  heard  of  a  few  now  living, 
though  it  is  not  likely  that  the  charge  could  be 
sustained  in  every  instance. 

We  can  never  forget  Watt,  whose  genius 
showed  itself  when  he  watched  the  steam  lift  the 
lid  of  his  mother's  tea-kettle;  nor  John  Stuart 
Mill,  who  was  thinking  through  philosophical 
problems,  and  in  technical  language,  long  before 
he  reached  his  teens.  Pope  said:  "I  lisped  in 
numbers,  for  the  numbers  came,"  even  though 
some  now  think  he  never  did  anything  but  lisp, 
except  to  limp.  The  late  John  Fiske  was  a  good 
Greek,  Latin  and  philosophical  scholar  before 
the  average  boy  of  that  age  had  learned  his  gram- 
mar. At  fourteen  Huxley  was  a  philosopher. 
Students  of  music  can  never  forget  how  the  boy 
Handel  stole  into  the  chapel  in  the  dark  and 
played  the  organ  till  they  were  attracted  from 
all  over  the  estate  of  the  Duke  of  Saxe-Weissen- 
fels  and  thought  it  must  be  an  angel  while  the 

136 


THE  BOY  PRODIGY  137 

duke  pronounced  him  a  genius ;  nor  how  Wolfgang 
Mozart  was  playing  tunes  at  four,  and  did  not 
have  an  equal  on  the  harpsichord  at  twelve.  Jo- 
sef Hofmann  was  the  wonderful  boy  pianist  a  few 
years  ago,  and  now  has  made  good  as  a  man. 

In  music  early  genius  has  been  brilliant  because 
the  emotions  are  always  more  active  in  youth 
than  the  intellect;  next  to  music  they  have  ap- 
peared in  literature.  Pope  wrote  his  "Ode  to 
Solitude7'  at  twelve.  At  twelve  Macaulay  won 
fame  by  his  first  volume.  Cowley  wrote  "Py- 
ramus  and  Thisbe"  at  twelve.  At  sixteen  Tasso 
wrote  "Rinaldo,"  Hugo  printed  a  volume  of 
poems  and  so  did  Chatterton.  Shelley  wrote 
"Queen  Mab"  and  Disraeli  "Vivian  Gray"  at 
eighteen.  Dickens  was  made  famous  by .  his 
"Sketches"  and  Byron  by  his  "English  Bards 
and  Scotch  Reviewers"  at  twenty-one.  Alexan- 
der Hamilton  was  talking  and  writing  like  an  old 
prophet  at  twelve.  In  a  few  months,  after  arriv- 
ing in  New  York  from  his  native  West  Indies  to 
attend  King's  College,  he  had  thought  out  the 
question  of  the  right  of  our  country  to  independ- 
ence, and,  in  a  patriotic  meeting,  in  the  open  field 
came  forward  and  electrified  the  audience  with 
a  great  speech — and  he  was  only  seventeen.  The 
late  President  Harper  of  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago was  such  a  wonder  as  a  grown  man  that  we 
forget  his  remarkable  boyhood.  Nor  must  we 
forget  the  newsboy,  Thomas  A.  Edison. 

And  there  have  been  "Boy  orators"  and  "Boy 


138  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

preachers"  and  "Boy  business  men.'7  No  one 
denies  that  there  have  been,  and  still  will  be, 
boy  geniuses.  Little  William  J  ames  Sidis  has 
dazzled  the  wise  men  of  the  east  with  his  conver- 
sations, writings  and  addresses  on  philosophical 
and  mathematical  subjects.  He  will  soon  know  all 
that  Harvard  can  teach  him,  while  Nicholas 
Wiener  is  treating  Cornell  to  the  same  sort  of  a 
sensation.  Frederick  C.  Leonard,  the  young  as- 
tronomer of  Chicago,  only  fifteen  now,  was  writ- 
ing learned  articles  for  the  English  and  American 
magazines  at  thirteen. 

We  are  not  producing  a  great  many  boy 
geniuses  at  the  present  time,  but  perhaps  we  have 
all  we  need.  We  really  do  not  need  as  many  as 
they  did  in  past  times,  because  the  average  boy 
knows  so  much  more  about  scientific  and  other 
matters  than  grown-up  men  knew  a  hundred 
years  ago.  Franklin  would  have  given  all  his 
possessions  to  know  as  much  about  electricity  as 
any  boy  of  twelve  knows  to-day.  The  mass  of 
common  knowledge  bulks  so  large  and  the  level 
of  the  intellectual  life  is  so  high  that  we  do  not 
need  men  to  blaze  the  way  as  far  ahead  as  the 
genius  used  to  do.  And  even  when  there  is  a 
genius  he  is  not  so  far  beyond  his  contemporaries 
as  the  genius  of  the  past  was  ahead  of  his.  We 
have  lifted  up  the  commonplace  till  the  uncom- 
mon does  not  dazzle  quite  so  much  as  it  once  did. 

Boy  wonders  had  a  way  of  coming  in  groups, 
and  they  have  come  when  conditions  have  been 


THE  BOY  PRODIGY  139 

especially  favourable  to  them.  The  greatest 
group  that  ever  arose  at  one  period  was  in  the 
Elizabethan  Era,  just  at  the  revival  of  learning 
and  the  waking  up  of  the  sentiments  of  liberty. 
The  Crusades  had  made  the  people  of  the  world 
better  acquainted  with  each  other,  the  discoveries 
of  new  lands  set  people  to  travelling,  the  intellec- 
tual treasures  of  Constantinople  were  released 
from  their  long  imprisonment,  the  printing  press 
was  invented,  the  inductive  method  of  study  be- 
gan to  be  employed,  and  the  spirit  of  dawn  was 
breathing  through  the  darkness. 

Then  the  great  boys  began  to  report,  especially 
in  literature,  science,  philosophy  and  statecraft, 
but  mostly  in  literature.  True  to  the  gang  in- 
stinct, they  selected  one  group  of  callings  at  a 
time.  At  one  period  they  are  almost  all  literary 
geniuses,  at  another  time  musical ;  again  they  are 
painters,  still  again  statesmen,  and  at  the  present 
time  they  are  mainly  "Captains  of  industry, " 
"Wizards  of  finance,"  "Napoleons  of  business/' 
And  it  is  genius,  too.  Rockefeller  is  perhaps  as 
great  a  genius,  in  his  sphere,  as  Shakespeare  was 
in  his. 

Not  every  boy  considered  a  genius  by  his  ad- 
miring relatives  is  one.  He  may  be  precocious 
but  not  a  genius.  But  suppose  there  is  a  real  boy 
genius  at  large  in  your  community,  what  then? 
It  brings  up  the  old  question,  "Why  should  the 
spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?"  His  spirit  or  that  of 
his  kindred?  Who  knows  but  it  may  be  only  a 


140  THAT  B'OY  OF  YOURS 

case  of  infantile  or  puerile  precocity  which  will 
disappear  as  the  years  go.  Neither  he  nor  his 
friends  should  ever  forget  that;  try  as  he  may, 
he  may  be  distanced  by  some  whose  powers  do  not 
develop  as  fast  as  his.  There  are  men-wonders 
whose  boyhood  was  not  unusual.  Wagner,  Bach, 
Goldsmith,  Cowper,  Franklin,  Darwin,  Defoe  and 
DeMorgan  belong  to  the  latter  class. 

And  there  are  some  alarming  possibilities  be- 
fore him.  Genius  is  not  insanity,  as  some  of  the 
wranglers  have  claimed;  nor  is  it  abnormal,  save 
that  it  is  unusual;  nor  is  it  what  is  called  a 
" sport."  One  may  be  what  we  often  call  a  "uni- 
versal genius,"  like  Goethe,  or  Michael  Angelo,  or 
Gladstone,  or  Shakespeare.  And  yet  he  is  apt  to 
be  one-sided  and  have  some  serious  defects  which 
will  prove  his  undoing,  as  a  defect  in  will,  judg- 
ment, sympathy.  He  may  lack  in  power  of  con- 
centration. The  latter  was  the  defect  of  Cole- 
ridge. The  prodigy  may  be  repressed  and  neg- 
lected. He  may  be  led  to  think  that  he  does  not 
need  training,  nor  discipline,  but  genius  is  never 
independent  of  such  things  and  it  takes  hard  work 
to  mature  and  bring  it  to  the  fulfilment  of  its 
bright  promise.  The  delicate  nerve  tissues  may 
be  burnt  out  before  he  reaches  the  more  serious 
work  of  his  life.  Genius  may  belong  to  one  who 
has  such  serious  defects  of  character  as  to  make 
his  undoing  almost  certain.  Either  by  birth  or 
culture  he  may  be  a  combination  of  genius  and 
fool.  I  saw  a  negro  in  the  South  who  was  once  on 


THE  BOY  PEODIGY  141 

exhibition  at  the  Atlanta  Exposition  for  his  abil- 
ity to  divide  and  multiply,  even  with  fractions, 
without  pencil  and  paper,  for  he  could  neither 
read  nor  write.  But  that  was  all  he  could  do.  I 
knew  another  genius  in  mathematics,  with  a  col- 
lege education,  but  the  last  time  I  heard  of  him 
there  was  nothing  left  but  the  mathematics  and 
that  was  obscured  and  rendered  ineffective  by  the 
mistakes  and  evil  of  his  life. 

If,  on  careful  examination,  the  boy  proves  to  be 
a  genius,  never  allow  him  to  suspect  it.  If  he 
should  find  it  out,  tell  him  of  the  fall  of  the  genius 
and  linger  over  its  harrowing  details  till  he  him- 
self becomes  aware  of  his  perils;  then  put  him  at 
hard  work  as  if  his  life  depended  on  it.  Have  him 
play  with  other  boys,  and  they  will  help  you  keep 
the  conceit  out  of  him.  Be  his  master  and  his 
adviser  and  keep  heavy  responsibilities  from  him 
till  he  gets  beyond  the  most  dangerous  point. 
You  may  save  him,  after  all. 

It  may  also  be  a  comfort  to  know  that  some  men 
who,  in  their  maturity,  were  put  in  the  genius 
class,  were  in  their  boyhood  looked  upon  as 
stupid — among  these  are  Wagner,  James  Russell 
Lowell,  Goldsmith,  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  Byron, 
Hegel,  Heine,  Humboldt,  Grant,  Seward,  Napo- 
leon, Darwin,  Homer.  There  is  hope  for  the 
genius,  as  well  as  for  the  dullard,  but  his  success 
must  come  through  a  teachable  spirit  and  growing 
responsibility. 


XXII 

ORGANISING  BOYS 

IT  is  easier  to  organise  boys  than  to  organise 
any  other  kind  of  business.  They  are  standing 
around  waiting  to  be  organised  into  almost  any 
sort  of  band  which  they  or  their  kind  friends  can 
think  of,  for  almost  any  kind  of  purpose.  The 
boy  has  the  honour  of  having  inspired  as  many 
" movements"  as  any  one  of  the  other  groups  in 
whose  behalf  the  various  historic  organisations 
have  been  started — young  men,  young  women, 
young  people,  men  and  the  rest.  He  also  has  the 
satisfaction  of  having  precipitated  a  " crisis," 
now  and  then,  of  more  or  less  large  dimensions ; 
and  he  can  get  up  a  local  " crisis"  any  morning, 
before  he  gets  up  himself.  He  was  the  main  child 
in  the  " Children's  Crusade,"  centuries  ago  and 
he  almost  started  the  modern  Sunday-school 
movement,  single-handed  and  alone. 

He  can  excite  more  kinds  of  interest  than  any 
one  else  and  a  great  deal  of  anxiety  as  well.  For 
him  all  kinds  of  factories  are  at  work,  with  day 
and  night  shifts,  turning  out  shoes  and  caps  and 
pants  and  medicine  and  surgical  instruments  and 
school  books  and  doctors  and  teachers  and  bread 
and  meat  and  musical  instruments  and  sweet- 

142 


ORGANISING  BOYS  143 

hearts  and  all  the  other  products  needed  by  him 
in  his  all-absorbing  business  of  being  a  boy.  He 
is  an  unconscious  patron  of  all  the  industries  and 
starts  a  few  himself. 

But  of  all  the  lines  of  business  which  his  pres- 
ence with  us  has  stimulated  that  of  organising 
him  is  one  of  the  most  flourishing.  He  needs 
all  we  have  ever  done  for  him  and  more,  but 
what  is  more  to  the  point,  he  likes  it  even  better 
than  we  do.  There  comes  a  time  when  he  and 
the  other  boys  would  rather  be  organised  than 
anything  else.  They  stand  around  waiting  for 
the  organiser  to  come  their  way,  but  they  can't 
wait  long;  if  he  doesn't  come  soon,  they  do  it 
themselves.  The  best  thing  is  that  they  do  not 
insist  on  doing  it  themselves  and  really  prefer  the 
superior  wisdom  and  skill  of  older  people.  They 
know,  however,  when  it  is  done  right,  when  it  is 
structurally  adapted  to  the  nature  and  the  in- 
terests of  boys;  for,  if  it  does  not  take  hold  of 
their  present  interests  in  order  to  lead  them  out 
into  other  unknown  but  desirable  interests,  it  is  in 
opposition  to  all  the  laws  of  child-life  and  the  laws 
of  pedagogy  as  well.  If  it  does  not  start  with  the 
boy  where  he  is  and  as  he  is,  it  will  never  take 
him  where  it  wants  to  take  him,  nor  make  him 
what  it  aims  to  make  him. 

His  characteristics  include  activity,  hero  wor- 
ship, loyalty,  social  enjoyment,  play,  love,  altru- 
ism; and  his  interests  are  the  things  that  appeal 
to  these  elements.  The  right  kind  of  an  organisa- 


144  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

tion  must  appeal  in  a  way  to  lead  to  nobility  of 
character. 

Something  like  twenty  years  ago  the  Boys' 
Brigade  was  started  for  his  benefit  and  served 
with  great  effectiveness.  It  caught  him  by  his 
devotion  to  the  heroic,  put  regimentals  on  him  and 
held  him  to  a  course  of  instruction  in  the  manual 
of  arms  and  field  practice,  as  a  soldier  of  righteous- 
ness. It  failed  to  address  itself  to  all  his  inter- 
ests, or  addressed  them  in  a  defective  way,  and  it 
has  gone.  But  each  movement  as  it  has  passed 
has  left  him  a  wiser  and  better-equipped  boy,  and 
left  its  place  vacant  for  another  movement  still 
better  adapted  to  his  needs. 

Local  modifications  of  the  main  ideas  are  still 
used  effectively.  The  "  Knights  of  King  Ar- 
thur," with  each  lodge  a  castle,  founded  by  Dr. 
Forbush  of  Boston,  is  popular  in  the  east.  The 
" Order  of  the  American  Boy"  is  a  growing  or- 
ganisation. The  "Seton  Woodcraft  Indians," 
started  by  Ernest  Thompson  Seton,  has  some 
vogue.  Dan  Beard's  "Sons  of  Daniel  Boone"  is 
also  popular. 

That  the  spirit  of  adventure  and  chivalry  and 
service  and  loyalty  is  to  be  always  harnessed  up 
and  utilised  in  making  him  a  man  is  well  indi- 
cated in  the  names  chosen  for  local  bands.  In 
looking  over  a  list  of  those  of  the  "Order  of  the 
American  Boy,"  I  found  such  as  these — "Doug- 
las Rustlers,"  "Cayuga  Warriors,"  "Ohio  Rough 
Riders,"  "Majestic  Guards,"  "Jackson  Athletic 


ORGANISING  BOYS  145 

Company,"  "Rehoboth  Bull  Dog  Company," 
" Night  Hawks  Athletic  Company,"  "American 
Eagle  Athletic  Company."  Here  we  find  the 
articles  of  a  rising  or  a  falling  power. 

One  of  the  latest  claimants  for  the  privilege  of 
serving  him  is  the  "Boy  Scout"  movement,  and 
it  is  spreading  with  a  rapidity  and  a  momentum 
never  before  known  in  any  boys'  movement.  It 
originated  in  England  in  1908  under  the  leader- 
ship of  General  Sir  Baden-Powell,  who  followed  a 
plan  of  organisation  used  with  the  boys  of  Mafe- 
king  at  the  time  of  the  Boer  War,  though  he  has 
also  very  carefully  studied  the  methods  employed 
in  former  work  for  boys,  especially  in  the  Boys' 
Brigade  of  America. 

There  are  now  over  a  million  Scouts  in  Great 
Britain  and  it  has  spread  to  all  the  British  col- 
onies and  to  France,  Germany,  Spain,  Italy, 
Switzerland,  Russia,  Sweden,  Norway,  Denmark, 
Austria-Hungary,  Chile,  Argentina,  the  United 
States,  and  is  still  going.  In  our  country  it  is 
advancing  fast,  with  national  officers,  whose  head- 
quarters are  in  New  York,  and  scout  masters  in 
every  State  in  the  Union  who  have  received  in- 
struction in  methods  of  work.  Colonel  Theodore 
Roosevelt  is  first  vice-president  and  General 
Leonard  Wood  is  a  member  of  the  general  coun- 
cil. The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  taken  it  up  and  ap- 
pointed Mr.  J.  L.  Alexander,  one  of  its  most 
expert  workers  with  boys,  to  direct  the  whole 
movement  in  its  organisation. 


146  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

This  movement  ought  to  be  the  best  yet,  and 
it  gives  promise  of  great  usefulness.  Its  whole 
aim  is  to  make  efficient  character  and  it  starts  at 
the  right  point,  with  the  boy's  honour.  "On  a 
scout's  honour"  is  as  solemn  and  binding  as  any 
oath  can  be.  It  disparages  war  except  against 
wrong  of  any  kind,  and  therefore  omits  the  mili- 
tary drill,  on  the  ground  that  it  injures  individual- 
ity and  versatility  and  narrows  one's  interests. 
This  is  the  judgment  of  General  Baden-Powell, 
who  ought  to  know.  It  trains  the  boy  in  things 
that  fit  him  for  danger  and  duty,  but  does  it  by 
stages — first  as  a  tenderfoot,  next  as  a  second- 
class  scout,  then  as  a  first-class  scout.  The  in- 
struction that  goes  with  each  degree  is  surprising 
in  its  variety  and  fresh  interest.  Within  the 
ranks  a  "first-class"  scout  may  gain  honour 
badges  for  ambulance  work,  for  marksmanship 
and  pioneer  work. 

He  learns  by  practice  rather  than  in  books — 
woodcraft,  animal  nature,  out-of-door  sports,  first 
aid  to  the  injured,  and  much  more ;  and  each  boy 
is  expected  and  expects  to  "do  a  good  turn  each 
day  to  someone."  It  is  said  that  an  accident  can 
scarcely  happen  anywhere  in  England,  but  boy 
scouts  are  the  first  on  the  ground  and  render  the 
most  intelligent  aid.  It  is  democratic  and  will 
not  allow  any  social  distinctions  among  the  boys 
themselves — boys  of  lords  working  side  by  side 
with  boys  of  their  gardeners. 


ORGANISING  BOYS  147 

This  bids  fair  to  become  the  most  popular,  in- 
teresting, widespread  and  long-continued  method 
of  organising  boys,  because  it  seems  to  appeal  to 
their  "get-together"  instincts  and  to  all  their  in- 
terests; it  has  been  thoroughly  thought  out,  pro- 
viding all  kinds  of  plans  and  instructions  for  lead- 
ers and  variety  for  the  boys ;  it  is  flexible  and  can 
be  made  to  serve  social,  industrial,  benevolent, 
educational,  patriotic,  altruistic  and  religious 
ends ;  and  it  is  always  ethical. 

In  organising  boys,  parents  and  leaders  should 
put  them  with  boys  of  the  same  general  age  and 
interests,  of  the  same  station  in  life  as  far  as 
possible,  and  assist  them  by  furnishing  as  much 
suggestion  as  possible  on  the  question  of  method, 
thinking  on  ahead  of  them,  so  as  to  be  able  to  di- 
rect them  with  an  intelligence  that  they  will  ad- 
mire. So  many  good  plans  for  local  organisation 
have  been  worked  out  in  connection  with  the  or- 
ganisations mentioned,  and  many  others,  that  any 
one  can  get  help  by  simply  writing  to  their  head- 
quarters. Sunday-schools  are  organising  more 
perfectly  these  days.  Several  things  are  needed 
for  an  efficient  class:  Organisation — a  good 
leader;  a  clear  division  of  forces  into  all  the 
kinds  of  service,  such  as  look-out,  benevolences, 
missions,  church  attendance,  athletics,  music,  etc. 
Some  connection  with  organisations  of  a  wide  field 
and  scope  is  valuable,  as  it  gives  them  the  sense 
of  multitude  and  dignity  of  purpose.  All  the  boys 


148  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUBS 

of  a  city  or  state  in  a  given  organisation,  find  pe- 
culiar reinforcement  in  each  other.  But  the  more 
individual  the  work  can  be  made  with  the  boys  in 
an  organised  group  the  more  valuable  it  will  be. 


xxm 

HIS   MOTIVES 

A  BOY  is  more  apt  to  have  fairly  good  motives 
than  false  ones.  He  starts  out  in  life  with  some- 
thing in  him  that  will  grow  into  a  sense  of  right, 
and  if  he  gets  tangled  it  will  be  because  he  is 
taught  it  through  the  eye  or  the  ear,  or  in  both 
ways.  If  a  boy's  motives  are  entirely  bad,  he  is 
seldom,  if  ever,  entirely  to  blame.  There  is  a 
reason.  It  may  be,  in  fact,  a  case  of  atavism, 
in  which  he  has  gone  back  and  appropriated  the 
fetid  tastes  of  some  ancestor  and  his  parents 
were  not  wise  enough  to  protect  him  against  the 
ravages  of  the  atavistic  beast.  The  inherited  in- 
fluence did  not  come  in  the  form  of  habits,  but  was 
a  tendency  or  a  spasmodic  impulse,  which  could 
have  been  trained  out  of  him. 

At  the  outset  we  must  concede  the  difficulty  of 
knowing  exactly  what  a  boy's  motives  are,  for  his 
deepest,  most  dominant  motive  is  often  tangled 
with  superficial,  secondary  and  temporary  ones 
and  these  may  be  so  complex  and  active  as  to  con- 
fuse us.  How  to  detach  the  real  motive  from  this 
tangle  of  impulses  and  make  it  the  dominant  thing 
is  the  problem.  If  he  asks  you  a  question  you 
are  never  sure  of  his  purpose.  It  may  be  fun,  or 

149 


150  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

fancy,  or  an  evasion  of  duty.  My  brother  once 
asked,  "Mother,  you  say  it  is  wrong  to  fight f" 
"Yes,  son."  "Well,  isn't  whipping  little  boys 
fighting?" 

In  an  argument,  his  one  motive  is  triumph,  not 
truth,  though  he  may  not  be  untruthful.  When 
he  claims  that  Yale  has  a  larger  attendance  than 
Chicago,  and  you  prove  your  statistics,  he  replies 
that  as  to  that  point,  Chicago  ought  to  have  more, 
and  he  says  it  with  the  tone  of  one  who  has  won 
a  victory  which  must  be  crushing  and  humiliating 
to  you.  If  it  is  football,  he  is  ready  to  treat  his 
opponents  with  unpitying  violence  and  yet,  when 
the  occasion  passes,  he  is  capable  of  rendering 
them  unselfish  and  heroic  kindness.  Under  the 
motives  of  ambition  and  revenge  he  seems  an  un- 
tamed Indian  and,  the  next  moment,  a  highly- 
developed  philanthropist. 

A  large  and  active  group  of  idiosyncrasies  and 
faults  seems  all  there  is  of  him.  And  the  hope- 
less thing  is  that  he  draws  his  motives  from  his 
stage  of  development  and  his  environment.  In 
the  gang  period  the  interests  of  home  and  school 
often  seem  secondary.  He  reverts  to  the  savage 
type  and  his  motives  correspond.  A  dog  fight  or 
chicken  fight  appeals  to  him  with  resistless  charm; 
and  his  motives  match  this  stage  of  progress. 
The  cave  dwellers  and  cliff  dwellers  and  Fiji 
islanders  have  little  superiority  over  him.  Dur- 
ing his  Bohemian  stage  his  vagrant  tendencies  re- 
veal another  passing  phase. 


HIS  MOTIVES  151 

Two  things  encourage  us.  One  is  that  these 
surface  motives  are  not  the  deepest  things  about 
him.  They  are  not  the  symptoms  of  anything 
bad,  but  of  a  new  stage  that  he  has  reached,  when 
new  forces  of  the  body  and  faculties  of  the  mind 
are  being  released.  He  hardly  knows  what  hurts 
him,  but  something  is  keeping  his  eyes  wide  open 
and  his  nerves  all  jumping.  The  other  encour- 
agement is  that  these  are  the  curious  ways  in 
which  his  very  deepest  and  truest  nature  is  find- 
ing itself.  His  devotion  to  the  gang  is  the  spirit 
of  loyalty  starting  toward  universal  brotherhood; 
his  fondness  for  contests  is  the  first  exhibition  of 
the  warrior  instinct  getting  ready  to  fight  the  good 
fight  of  faith;  his  Bohemianism  is  an  incipient 
cosmopolitanism;  his  local  attachments  are  the 
prelude  to  patriotism,  his  battles  for  his  partners 
the  forerunners  of  his  battles  in  the  higher  inter- 
ests of  his  fellow  men. 

His  sense  of  honour  sometimes  breaks  down 
when  physical  ailments  keep  him  from  getting 
possession  of  his  own  powers,  and  somebody  is 
not  wise  enough  to  have  surgical,  or  medical, 
or  athletic,  or  dietetic  attention  given  him.  It 
more  often  breaks  down  at  the  treatment  he  re- 
ceives at  home.  Nervous  irritation  and  the  sense 
of  being  a  negligible  quantity  often  lead  to  loss 
of  respect  for  his  own  word,  or  of  noble  pride  in 
his  own  actions.  He  usually  responds  to  the  right 
treatment,  as  the  flower  to  the  sunshine. 

It  is  indispensable  that  his  honour  be  recognised 


152  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

and  trusted.  It  is  there  to  start  with.  Get  a 
microscope,  if  necessary,  and  identify  and  locate 
the  divine  thing.  It  is  conscious  of  itself  and 
must  be  recognised.  To  be  doubted  is  to  be 
doomed.  He  is  often  called  a  bad  boy  when  his 
energy  is  construed  into  evil  and  his  mischief  into 
malice.  When  he  is  accused  of  deception  or  of 
taking  things  not  his  own,  it  amounts  to  an  invi- 
tation to  him  to  lie  and  steal.  When  wrong  has 
been  done  and  he  is  charged  with  it,  without  pre- 
liminary study  and  inquiry,  he  soon  concludes  that 
his  reputation  is  already  bad  and  he  becomes  reck- 
less as  to  whether  he  deserves  it. 

Many  a  boy  has  been  reclaimed  to  honour  by 
such  men  as  Judges  Tuthill  of  Chicago,  Lindsay 
of  Denver,  Brown  of  Salt  Lake  City,  Dr.  Merrill 
of  Denver,  and  that  growing  list  of  lovers  of  chil- 
dren who  are  substituting  sense  for  scolding  and 
brotherly  friendship  for  brute  force,  through  his 
exhilarating  sense  of  being  trusted.  If  you  sus- 
pect his  motives  never  let  him  suspect  that  you 
do. 

Out  in  Council  Bluffs,  la.  one  section  of  the  po- 
lice force  is  made  up  of  boys.  They  do  duty  on 
special  occasions,  and  the  two  conditions  of  ad- 
mission to  the  "Kid  Force,"  are  efficiency  and 
good  behaviour  between  times  of  serving.  To  be 
trusted  in  that  way  is  an  ambition  that  keeps  hun- 
dreds of  boys  on  their  good  behaviour  all  the  time. 
The  Chief  of  Police  of  Chicago  is  utilising  the 
Boy  Scouts  in  the  enforcement  of  law  in  several 


HIS  MOTIVES  153 

sections  of  the  city.  When  you  depend  on  the  boy 
he  can  be  depended  on. 

One  of  the  severest  tests  of  his  dependability  is 
in  meetings  which  require  reverence  and  sym- 
pathy from  him.  In  the  Carter  class  of  more  than 
a  hundred  bays  of  the  Calvary  Baptist  Sunday- 
school  of  Chicago,  the  devotional  service  preced- 
ing the  lesson  study,  is  the  most  impressive  part 
of  the  hour  and  it  is  partly  in  the  hands  of  the 
boys  themselves.  They  will  not  allow  any  irrev- 
erence. The  extraordinary  efficiency  of  the  Boy 
Scout  work  is  due  to  the  fact  that  each  one  is  "on 
a  Scout's  honour." 

A  young  man  who  had  lost  a  position  because 
of  inefficiency,  was  employed  by  another  firm,  be- 
cause they  were  compelled  to  have  someone  and 
he  was  the  only  one  they  could  get.  Soon  they 
noticed  that  he  had  good  suggestions  to  make  and 
he  found  that  they  would  listen.  He  began  to 
climb  and,  before  long,  was  in  a  very  responsible 
position  and  became  indispensable  to  the  firm. 
When  asked  why  he  could  not  keep  his  first  job,  he 
replied,  *  *  They  treated  me  as  if  I  was  a  fool  and  I 
acted  like  one."  That  discloses  a  reason  why  a 
boy's  best  must  be  recognised.  To  attribute  a 
bad  motive  for  the  freakish  and  prankish  ways  of 
a  boy  is  one  way  of  making  him  permanently 
prankish,  or  worse,  while  the  surest  way  to  make 
his  motives  good  is  to  consider  him  good  and  let 
him  know  that  you  do. 

Speaking  of  the  more  advanced  schoolboy,  Dr. 


154  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

Stanley  Hall  says:  "Of  all  safeguards  I  believe 
a  rightly-cultivated  sense  of  honour  is  the  most 
effective  at  this  age." 

It  is  indispensable  that  the  boy  have  a  concrete 
instance  of  what  honour  means,  in  those  who  make 
the  atmosphere  and  spirit  of  home.  When  he 
breathes  in  an  atmosphere  of  unreality,  self-seek- 
ing, false  reasonings,  false  treatment,  he  is  dazed 
and  stanned  and  usually  loses  the  sense  of  dis- 
tinction between  truth  and  falsehood,  honour  and 
dishonour.  During  the  days  when  he  is  mostly 
instincts  and  impulses,  before  his  conscience  is 
actively  in  command,  his  elders  are  his  conscience, 
and  when  they  are  without  that  rudder,  he  is  at 
sea.  Injustice  and  unfairness  are  flagrant  in  his 
eye  and  he  knows  when  his  own  honour  is  dis- 
honoured. He  can  sometimes  give  points  to  his 
father  in  more  ways  than  one. 

Sometimes  it  is  a  sense  of  injury  that  leads 
him  to  seek  by  dishonest  means  that  to  which  he 
is  entitled.  "When  his  sense  of  honour  is  ignored 
and  treated  as  if  it  did  not  exist  at  all,  he  often 
takes  his  first  step  in  lying;  many  a  mother  won- 
ders why  "Tom  can't  be  trusted,"  when  she  may 
be  doing  her  poor,  foolish  best  to  make  him  an 
habitual  liar  and  thief,  with  brilliant  prospects 
of  carrying  the  process  still  further.  Any  one 
can  find  the  fibre  of  fidelity  down  in  his  soul  who 
knows  how  to  be  a  friend  to  him  and  show  faith 
in  him. 

His  motives  will  also  need  protection.    Those 


HIS  MOTIVES  155 

that  are  temporary  may  be  treated  in  a  way  to 
disfigure  him  for  life ;  in  fact  the  temporary  way 
may  be  made  the  permanent  by  false  treatment. 
An  attempt  to  suppress  the  outflow  of  his  tumultu- 
ous nature  may  make  it  ingrowing,  may  bottle  it 
up  to  be  emitted  all  his  life  in  inopportune  ways. 
The  war-whoop  may  become  malignant  if  it  is  not 
allowed  to  come  out  in  all  its  innocence.  The  gen- 
uine good-will  must  be  allowed  to  effervesce  in  its 
own  way  as  a  protection  to  his  good  nature.  The 
machinery  gets  relief  by  blowing  off  steam.  Re- 
pression may  produce  explosion,  or  compel  him  to 
seek  a  congenial  environment  away  from  home. 
That  is  always  the  beginning  of  dark  days  for  all 
concerned. 

His  motives  will  also  need  infection  from  with- 
out, so  as  to  correct  and  complete  them.  If  one 
wants  to  get  yellow  fever,  he  needs  only  to  let 
some  ambitious  mosquito  bore  into  his  cuticle  with 
a  bill  that  has  been  dipped  in  a  cauldron  of  yellow 
fever  germs  and  crawl  over  him  with  feet  that 
have  a  good  assortment  of  germs  clinging  to  them. 
Then  the  victim  is  ready  for  the  worst.  One  can 
also  have  health  infection,  as  by  antitoxin  and  in 
the  infusion  of  pure  fresh  blood  from  some 
healthy  person.  It  is  of  the  highest  importance 
that  a  boy's  motives  be  frequently  purified  by 
fresh  infusions  of  motives  of  the  highest  kind. 

When  he  is  thus  assisted,  direction  will  be 
needed  more  than  correction.  Formation  will 
prevent  the  need  for  reformation;  if  the  former 


156  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

is  right,  the  latter  will  not  be  necessary.  To  dis- 
cover his  best  motives,  to  discriminate  them  from 
the  secondary  and  temporary,  to  direct  them  in 
righteous  and  rational  ways — this  is  someone's 
high  and  inescapable  duty. 

But  something  more  must  be  said  of  the  motive, 
as  the  power  that  moves  him  to  action.  Motives 
must  be  recognised  in  the  activities  and  made  to 
work  without  consciousness.  That  comes  as  the 
result  of  vital  possession.  Dr.  Hall  pertinently 
says,  "If  authority  supplement  rather  than  super- 
sede good  motives,  the  child  will  so  love  authority 
as  to  overcome  your  reluctance  to  apply  it  di- 
rectly and,  as  a  final  result,  will  choose  the  state 
and  act  you  have  performed,  in  its  slowly  widen- 
ing margin  of  freedom.  In  this  heat  the  motives 
are  merged  into  the  life  and  are  mechanicised  in 
the  action. " 


XXIV 

HIS   FAILINGS 

His  failings  are  exclusively  his.  He  owns  them 
but  seldom  owns  up  to  them.  Some  are  due  to  his 
immaturity  and  will  disappear  with  the  passing 
of  infantile  diseases,  warts  and  freckles  and  child- 
ish features,  unless  they  are  fixed  by  some  fool- 
ish older  person,  who  insists  that  passing  phases 
of  his  development  are  permanent  forms  of  de- 
pravity and  succeeds  in  turning  the  changing  hues 
into  fast  colours,  all  red.  That  boy  showed  his 
quality  who  defined  a  hypocrite  as  "A  boy  wot 
comes  to  school  wid  a  smile  on  his  face."  When 
the  nervous  Sunday-school  teacher  said  to  the  mis- 
chievous lad,  "Tommie,  I'm  afraid  I  won't  see 
you  in  heaven,"  it  was  due  entirely  to  his  sense 
of  humour  that  had  not  yet  gained  its  social 
perspective  and  propriety,  that  he  asked,  without 
hesitation,  "Why,  what  have  you  been  doing!" 

Some  of  his  failings  are  due  to  his  being  an 
immature  human  being,  some  to  being  an  imma- 
ture man,  and  the  latter  will  not  slough  off  at  all. 
We  have  to  classify  them  as  among  his  unavoid- 
able limitations,  not  to  be  outlawed,  but  to-be 
harnessed  up  and  put  to  work  drawing  his  per- 
sonality through  bogs  and  over  mountains.  We 

157 


158  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

are  not  to  look  on  them  as  hopeless  liabilities  but 
as  productive  endowments.  And  yet  they  will  al- 
ways be  idosyncrasies  if  not  faults. 

He  is  often  tortured  with  the  feeling  of  being 
misunderstood.  He  is  rebuffed  for  his  humor- 
ous tendencies.  A  gentleman,  just  alighting  from 
the  cars,  said  to  a  boy,  "May  I  ask  you  how  far 
it  is  to  the  Palmer  House  I"  The  youth  replied: 
"You  may  do  so  this  time,  but  you  must  never, 
never  do  it  again.''  He  was  probably  misunder- 
stood and  called  impudent  when  he  was  only  a 
humourist. 

There  are  four  kinds  of  bad  boys:  The  boy 
who  is  called  bad  without  really  being  thought  so ; 
the  boy  who  is  both  called  and  considered  bad,  but 
is  not  so ;  the  boy  who  really  is  bad,  but  was  almost 
compelled  to  be  so;  the  boy  who  is  bad  in  spite 
of  all  kind  efforts  to  make  him  good. 

The  boy  of  the  first  class  is  almost  sure  to  be- 
come bad,  and  to  move  down  into  the  third  class. 
To  call  him  bad  is  very  apt  to  make  him  so,  un- 
less he  is  a  boy  of  a  very  fine  sense  of  humour,  or 
has  enough  good  sense  to  see  that  the  accusation 
is  meaningless,  a  mere  effort  on  the  part  of  some 
folk  to  appear  virtuous,  or  an  exhibition  of  un- 
regulated playfulness.  The  problem  is  not  what 
to  do  with  the  boy,  but  what  in  the  world  to  do 
with  people  as  old  as  they  are  who  think  and  talk 
so.  The  penitentiary  would  be  a  little  too  severe; 
so  would  the  workhouse.  A  reformatory  would 
be  about  right  and  the  feeble-minded  institute 


HIS  FAILINGS  159 

would  be  just  the  thing.  "A  House  of  Correction 
for  Idiotic  Parents,"  would  be  useful  for  each 
county. 

The  boy  of  the  second  class,  both  called  and 
considered  bad  when  he  is  not  is  abundant.  He 
is  considered  bad  because  he  has  not  learned  the 
artistic  and  emotional  adaptation  of  his  voice  to 
the  indoor  life;  because  he  celebrates  Hallowe'en 
and  April  Fool 's  day  as  often  as  he  can ;  because 
he  has  not  learned  to  refrain  from  wearing  out 
his  trousers  where  you  don't  want  him  to  wear 
them  out;  because  he  shirks  responsibility  and 
hard  labour;  because  he  does  not  show  respect  for 
the  one  who  calls  him  bad;  because  it  is  easier 
for  that  one  to  call  him  bad,  and  thus  dispose  of 
the  question,  without  the  necessity  of  careful  dis- 
crimination. Having  classified  him  that  way  one 
can  go  on  and  treat  him  accordingly,  for  it  never 
seems  worth  while  to  try  to  do  anything  for  a 
"bad  boy."  "Idiotic"  is  not  just  the  word  for 
such  folk.  Perhaps  the  word  "brutal"  is  not  as 
scientific  and  colorless  as  required.  If  the  boy 
does  not  become  bad  it  is  not  their  fault,  while, 
often,  he  has  the  finest  elements  and  sentiments 
to  be  wished  for  in  a  boy.  Of  course  a  boy  is 
sometimes  thought  bad  because  he  is  found  with 
that  sort  of  companions.  Instead  of  bringing  the 
charge  against  him  and  compelling  him  to  live 
down  to  the  adverse  opinion,  his  true  friends,  if  he 
has  any,  should  rescue  him  from  his  degrading  as- 
sociates. We  may  summarise  reasons  why  he 


160  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

seems  bad — it  may  be  the  effect  of  hot  or  humid 
weather,  restraint  on  his  out-of-door  instincts,  dis- 
like of  unjust  limitations,  passion  for  nomadic  life, 
not  sufficient  or  good  enough  food,  lack  of  physical 
exercise,  self-deception,  a  dreamy,  impractical 
disposition. 

The  boy  of  the  third  class  would  rather  be  good, 
if  you  should  put  it  to  a  final  vote,  but  in  spite 
of  himself,  he  has  been  made  bad.  Called  and 
considered  and  treated  as  bad,  he  at  last  says: 
"It  is  inevitable;  I  have  to  be  bad,  so  here  goes." 
My  soul  waxes  indignant  every  time  I  hear  a 
parent  say:  "You  are  a  bad  boy";  "You  are  a 
good  for  nothing";  "You  are  not  worth  your 
salt."  Sometimes  the  sense  of  being  unfairly 
treated  is  so  acute  that  the  boy  loses  all  control 
of  himself.  An  eminent  minister  says  he  was  left 
motherless,  and  his  father  had  no  power  to  secure 
his  confidence — in  fact,  treated  him  as  a  bad  boy 
till  he  became  one ;  but  his  father  was  wise  enough 
to  bring  home  to  the  boy  one  day  a  stepmother 
who  made  him  her  friend  and  kept  him  from  ruin. 
There  is  an  organ  called  a  heart  thumping  around 
somewhere  in  every  boy,  and  if  you  know  how 
to  find  it  and  get  your  fingers  on  its  strings,  you 
can  lead  him  into  better  ways.  "Paper,  boy!" 
said  a  man,  as  he  hastened  to  the  station.  "Can't 
do  it,"  said  the  tough-looking  boy;  "git  one  from 
dat  old  blind  man  across  de  street."  "But  I'm  in 
a  hurry."  "Can't  help  it.  Dis  is  old  Blindy's 
territory,  and  if  any  boy  sells  papers  in  dis  block 


HIS  FAILINGS  161 

us  boys  gives  him  a  lickinV  You  would  never 
have  dreamed,  from  his  looks,  that  that  boy  had 
a  heart. 

The  boy  of  the  fourth  class  has  had  much  to 
keep  him  good  but  he  won't  be  good.  He  is  a 
mystery.  No,  not  that  exactly.  He  made  some 
mistakes  a  generation  ago,  possibly  every  genera- 
tion for  ages,  in  the  selection  of  ancestors.  But 
even  then  two  things  may  be  said  for  the  encour- 
agement of  his  friends :  There  is  a  bit  of  heart 
left;  there  is  some  power  of  choice  remaining. 
So  environ  him  properly,  let  him  see  in  you  what 
a  sublime  being  a  man  can  be  and  invoke  for  him 
the  sleepless  sympathy  of  the  "Friend  of  sin- 
ners." Call  in  friends  to  help  you;  send  him  to 
the  country,  or  to  a  new  neighbourhood.  Tell  him 
how  people  like  him. 

Dr.  Merrill  is  almost  exactly  right  in  saying 
that  the  boy  is  all  right  and  that  the  problem  of 
the  bad  boy  is  the  problem  of  those  who  have 
him  in  charge.  His  ancestors  ought  to  confess 
the  handicap  they  put  on  him  in  giving  him  their 
dispositions,  and  then  get  to  work  to  protect  him 
from  the  natural  consequences  of  it  till  he  can  be 
led  to  choose  something  higher  and  better  for  him- 
self. 

If  his  inherited  disposition  is  not  hopelessly 
bad,  he  may  be  tempted  into  badness  by  the  pub- 
lic. The  city  life  is  in  an  environment  created 
for  business  purposes  and  not  with  a  view  to  his 
interests.  Every  fault  of  a  boy  seems  to  be  ap- 


162  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

pealed  to  in  the  average  city,  with,  its  crowded 
homes  and  poor  playgrounds,  and  the  call  both  to 
his  love  for  unwholesome  pleasures  and  for  money 
with  which  to  pay  for  them.  Sometimes  he  is  sud- 
denly overwhelmed  in  the  results  of  some  blunder 
which  he  never  meant  to  be  a  crime,  but  is  con- 
strued as  a  crime,  and  for  which  he  is  made  a 
criminal.  A  Chicago  boy  stole  a  pair  of  shoes 
which  he  thought  he  needed,  was  taken  to  the  jus- 
tice 's  court  in  a  patrol  wagon,  tried,  bound  over 
to  the  grand  jury,  kept  in  the  county  jail  twelve 
days  in  company  with  hardened  criminals  and 
was  treated  as  a  criminal  while  waiting  to  go  be- 
fore the  grand  jury.  The  passion  for  mystery 
and  romance  and  for  adventure  may  lure  him  to 
ruin.  The  stimulus  of  the  city  may  excite  him 
into  abnormal  activity. 

The  police  often  arouse  the  lawless  spirit  in 
boys.  "Daddy"  Norris,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Eay  School  in  Chicago,  is  an  instance  of  the 
opposite  kind  and  his  influence  for  good  is  one  of 
the  strongest  in  the  whole  community. 

There  are  times  again,  when  every  boy  finds  it 
easier  to  do  wrong  and  gets  a  surprising  amount 
of  outside  assistance  in  doing  it.  The  running- 
away  age  is  from  six  to  eight,  the  lawless  age  from 
eight  to  twelve,  and  then  the  sense  of  law  begins 
to  awaken  in  response  to  the  law  of  the  gang. 
During  these  critical  days,  it  is  criminal  and  often 
fatal  to  be  irritable  with  him.  His  boyhood  weak- 
nesses aid  the  temptations — gluttony,  vanity  and 


HIS  FAILINGS  163 

«• 

often  laziness.  All  the  crudities  and  contradic- 
tions make  him  more  open  to  evil.  Imitation  and 
imagination  and,  later,  the  development  of  the  sex 
instincts  all  seem  on  the  side  of  temptation;  and 
they  are,  unless  he  is  well  cared  for.  Kapid  and 
radical  alternations  of  buoyancy  and  depression, 
conceit  and  self-distrust,  tender  affection  and  law- 
less defiance  rock  him  to  and  fro,  a  seemingly 
helpless  victim. 

Dr.  Hall  says  temptations  to  truancy  come 
about  thirteen  and  under;  temptations  to  mali- 
cious mischief  at  fourteen;  larceny  and  disorderly 
conduct  at  fifteen;  more  mature  offences  at  six- 
teen. We  must  go  to  his  help. 

And  yet  nature  has  made  provision  for  his  pro- 
tection and  a  special  providence  aids  those  who 
are  responsible  for  him.  He  has  no  reinforcing 
memories  of  former  victories,  though  he  is  ac- 
cumulating them.  His  father  should  have  vic- 
tories and  hold  them  for  his  benefit.  He  has  a 
yearning  for  companionship  and  his  father  has 
been  elected  to  supply  him  with  all  he  needs.  The 
old  Spartan  law  was  not  far  wrong,  which  held 
the  parents  responsible  for  the  delinquencies  of 
the  children.  And  the  teacher  was  right  who  said : 
"Whenever  I  find  anything  wrong  in  my  school,  I 
immediately  examine  myself  and  I  usually  find 
the  cause  of  it  in  myself.  My  body  is  out  of  or- 
der or  some  unpleasant  event  has  affected  my 
spirits,  or  I  am  worn  with  excessive  toil." 

Classify  a  given  wrong  first  of  all,  decide  if  it 


164  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUKS 

is  a  crime,  or  a  misdemeanour,  or  a  blunder. 
Next  inquire  into  the  cause,  or  causes,  of  it. 
Then  remove  the  cause,  even  if  it  is  like  removing 
one's  own  eye. 

The  point  of  contact  is  one  of  the  first  condi- 
tions of  teaching  and  you  must  have  a  point  of 
contact  with  the  boy.  Begin  at  the  point  of  his 
real  worth.  Assume  it.  Never  doubt  him,  if  you 
can  avoid  it.  If  you  suspect  him  of  being  bad, 
never  let  him  know  it  till  you  have  tried  every 
other  means  of  reclaiming  him.  Trust  him  and 
let  him  feel  that  he  is  implicitly  trusted.  Confide 
secrets  to  him  and  thus  stimulate  the  virtue  of 
fidelity.  When  some  temptation  sweeps  him  off 
his  feet,  help  him  back  to  self-respecting,  yet  self- 
distrusting,  purity. 

Partnership  with  him  must  grow  closer  as  peril 
becomes  stronger.  Tramping  and  fishing  and 
hunting  and  playing  and  reading  with  him  will 
help. 

If  the  home  were  somewhere  near  right,  also 
the  schools,  also  the  public  in  its  provisions  for 
the  physical  and  mental  and  artistic  and  ethical 
welfare  of  children,  there  would  be  few  bad  boys, 
for  heredity  would  soon  become  as  correct  as  en- 
vironment. 


XXV 

HIS  PUNISHMENTS 

THE  well-reared  boy  who  slips  through  life  with- 
out getting  some  sort  of  punishment — there  is 
no  such  boy.  Even  if  he  should  never  do  any- 
thing to  require  punishment — but  no,  why  deal  in 
pure  hypothesis?  If  he  should  be  able  to  escape 
all  the  vigilance  committees  that  are  after  him,  it 
would  be  solely  because  he  is  doing  the  punishing 
and  administering  the  discipline  himself,  and  in 
secret;  but  we  need  not  tarry  over  that  rare,  if 
not  impossible,  specimen.  Some  divergence  from 
the  line  of  rectitude  is  inevitable,  even  when  that 
line  is  clearly  drawn  by  the  teaching,  and  attrac- 
tively illuminated  by  the  practice  of  those  who 
have  him  in  charge.  He  cannot  escape  all  his 
monitors,  including  his  conscience.  So  punish- 
ment must  come,  because,  if  there  be  no  results  of 
wrong-doing,  there  can  be  no  wrong-doing  and  we 
have  a  "fool  world"  to  live  in. 

Those  who  have  him  in  charge  have  been  nomi- 
nated and  elected  to  administer  all  discipline;  but 
you  must  first  catch  the  hare  before  cooking  it, 
and  you  must  actually  find  something  to  punish, 
before  the  punishment  is  administered.  It  takes 
wisdom  to  know  with  certainty  in  every  case 

165 


166  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

whether  there  has  been  wrong-doing;  and,  if  so, 
what  it  deserves,  how  the  punishment  should  be 
administered,  and  what  the  purpose  of  it  is. 
There  is  an  intricate  problem  presented,  when  his 
parents  start  out  to  punish  him. 

Sometimes  a  boy  looks  impudent,  has  an  irri- 
tating accent  and  seems  to  deserve  attention  on 
general  principles.  In  that  case,  circumstantial 
evidence  becomes  conclusive.  Sometimes  it  is  his 
awkwardness  and  not  his  meanness  that  leads  to 
a  break.  All  of  us  are  interested  in  what  Tolstoi 
writes,  and  he  says  his  ungainly,  ugly,  stupid-look- 
ing face  and  coarse,  unshapely  hands  and  feet  dis- 
tressed him  and  made  him  more  intractable  when 
a  boy.  Often  it  is  the  sudden  awakening  of  some 
power  that  compels  the  boy  to  do  some  unusual, 
even  unlawful,  thing,  and  he  will  at  once  subside 
into  docility  again.  An  irritated  parent  may 
whip  him  to  work  off  his  own  anger,  and  that  is 
worse  than  hanging  the  wrong  man  on  circum- 
stantial evidence.  To  mistreat  a  boy  is  a  crime 
and  ought  to  be  treated  as  such.  It  is  not  always 
possible  to  keep  a  boy  from  thinking  he  is  un- 
justly treated  and,  in  that  case,  all  you  can  do  is  to 
do  right  and  let  him  get  over  his  miff  whenever 
it  suits  his  convenience. 

Punishment  can  be  reduced  to  a  minimum  by 
careful  discipline  in  the  directing  of  his  life.  Di- 
recting a  boy's  life  is  a  good  deal  like  directing 
the  course  of  a  horse.  There  are  two  ways  of 
driving  a  horse,  a  right  and  a  wrong  way.  The 


HIS  PUNISHMENTS  167 

right  way  is  to  hold  the  reins  firmly  so  that  the 
horse  can  feel  the  faintest  pressure  on  either 
line.  Through  that  means  he  will  enter  with  you 
into  the  enjoyment  of  the  drive.  The  wrong  way 
is  to  let  him  have  the  reins  and  do  as  he  will,  un- 
til he  does  something  you  do  not  want,  then  to  go 
at  him  and  beat  him  till  his  skin  and  his  heart 
are  sore  and  he  grows  weary  and  would  like  to 
do  something  desperate;  in  that  case  the  horse's 
mistakes  are  wholly  due  to  the  way  his  driver  has 
treated  him,  and  the  latter  deserves  the  beating. 
Good  discipline  will  save  drubbing. 

It  is  my  solemn  conclusion  that  in  almost  every 
case  the  wrong-doing  of  a  boy,  that  requires 
punishment,  could  have  been  prevented  by  the 
parents,  and  that  they  ought  to  take  the  punish- 
ment themselves.  They  ought  to  have  honour 
enough  to  take  it  openly  and  voluntarily,  so  that 
he  may  have  the  moral  effect  of  seeing  such  a 
rare  instance  of  nobility.  There  is  still  an  altru- 
istic element  in  suffering.  Sometimes  the  parents 
are  more  or  less  blameless  people  who  have  turned 
him  over  to  himself  before  they  have  taught  him 
to  control  himself,  and  sometimes  they  are  fool- 
ish enough  to  imagine  they  can  give  way  in  his 
presence  to  any  kind  of  undesirable  self-expres- 
sion without  sowing  dragon's  teeth  in  his  soul 
and  in  their  home.  If  they  both,  or  that  one  who 
is  responsible  for  it,  will  only  put  the  instru- 
ment of  punishment  in  the  boy's  hand  and  let  him 
apply  the  rod,  it  will  present  to  him  an  appeal 


168  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUBS 

of  overwhelming  moral  grandeur.  It  Has  been 
tried. 

But  when  punishment  is  truly  deserved,  it  must 
be  given  and  the  occasion  made  an  epoch  in  the 
life  of  the  boy.  It  is  not  to  be  made  an  end  in  it- 
self, nor  a  matter  of  retribution,  nor  any  one's 
vindication,  but  an  education  to  the  boy.  It  must, 
first  of  all,  bring  him  back  to  the  line  of  rectitude 
from  which  he  departed.  It  must  awaken  in  him, 
not  alone  a  sense  of  the  majesty  of  right  and  truth, 
but  a  new  desire  to  conform  his  life  to  it.  It 
must  be  the  means  of  starting  a  new  habit  and 
giving  him  a  new  attitude  of  mind  toward  what 
is  right,  a  new  respect  for  those  who  stand  in  this 
severe  way  for  what  is  right  and  true,  a  new  re- 
spect for  himself,  which  comes  through  self-re- 
proach and  then  self -rectification.  It  must  pro- 
mote every  virtue  in  him  and  reinforce  every 
worthy  motive.  That  must  be  the  aim  of  the  one 
who  inflicts  the  punishment,  or  his  deed  is  worse 
than  the  boy's  offence.  It  will  not  be  easy  for  the 
boy  to  enter,  at  once,  into  sympathy  with  the 
whole  scheme.  When  he  hears:  "It  hurts  me 
more  than  it  does  you,  my  son,"  he  knows  one 
way  in  which  it  does  not  and  cannot.  . 

Inseparable  from  the  punishment  must  be  the 
effort  to  remove  the  occasion,  and  even  the  cause 
of  the  offence  for  which  it  was  inflicted.  If  they 
trace  it  back  to  themselves  they  must  protect  him 
from  themselves,  their  modes  of  speech,  the  at- 
mosphere they  create  by  their  inner  spirits,  and 


HIS  PUNISHMENTS  169 

their  failure  to  give  him  the  wise  discipline  and 
the  steady,  authoritative  direction  which  his  life 
needs.  If  the  cause  of  it  is  in  him  alone,  as  in  rare 
instances  it  is,  they  can  undertake  no  higher  life- 
task  than  protecting  him  against  his  own  faults. 
He  will  respect  authority,  but  not  those  who 
wield  it  like  tyrants  or  outlaws.  He  may  be  per- 
suaded to  enter  into  any  right  scheme  of  dis- 
cipline involving  punishments  and  rewards  which 
means  that  he  will  co-operate  in  his  own  develop- 
ment— a  thing  very  necessary  if  there  is  to  be  a 
right  development.  The  sentiment  of  fear,  which 
one  may  appeal  to  in  a  right  way,  may  be  har- 
nessed up  to  active  work  and  turned  into  love.  I 
am  glad  the  respectable  psychologists  are  telling 
us  that  fear  and  pain  are  among  the  indispensa- 
bles  of  education.  Hall  says:  "Dermal  pain  is 
not  the  worst  thing  in  the  world  and  by  a  judi- 
cious knowledge  of  how  it  feels  at  both  ends  of 
the  rod,  by  flogging  and  by  being  flogged,  far 
deeper  pains  may  be  forefended.  Insulting  de- 
fiance, deliberate  disobedience,  ostentatious  care- 
lessness and  bravado,  are  diseases  of  the  will, 
and  in  very  rare  cases  of  Promethean  obstinacy, 
the  severe  process  of  breaking  the  will  is  needful, 
just  as,  in  surgery,  it  is  occasionally  needful  to 
rebreak  a  limb  wrongly  set,  or  deformed,  to  set 
it  over  better.  It  is  a  cruel  process,  but  a  crampy 
will  in  childhood  means  moral  traumatism  of 
some  sort,  in  the  adult.  Few  parents  have  the 
nerve  to  do  this,  or  the  insight  to  see  just  where  it 


170  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

is  needed.  It  is,  as  someone  has  said,  like  knock- 
ing a  man  down  to  save  him  from  stepping  off  a 
precipice.  Even  the  worst  punishments  are  but 
very  faint  types  of  what  nature  has  in  store,  in 
later  life,  for  some  forms  of  perversity  of  will, 
and  far  better  than  sarcasm,  ridicule,  or  tasks 
as  penalties." 

Punishment  must  be  free  from  threats  and 
harshness  and  anger,  for  they  defeat  its  purpose. 
It  must  not  be  occasional  and  intermittent,  but  as 
each  need  arises.  The  quieter  and  freer  from 
noise  and  talk  such  occasions  can  be  made,  the 
more  surely  will  they  serve  their  true  purpose.  A 
storm  of  abuse  around  his  head  is  a  greater  of- 
fence than  the  one  he  commits.  Scolding  and 
nagging  are  inexcusable  in  any  one  except  the 
devil,  and  he  has  too  much  sense  to  give  way  to 
them.  Punishment  must  be  adapted  to  the  nature 
of  the  offence.  There  may  be  retribution  but  no 
vindictiveness  in  it.  If  food,  or  play,  or  anything 
he  is  especially  interested  in,  is  involved  in  the 
offence,  he  may  be  denied  that  very  thing,  with  the 
most  telling  effect.  All  the  interests  of  the  boy 
require  that  he  be  punished  when  he  does  wrong 
and  that  the  punishment  be  made  an  indispensable 
element  in  his  moral  education. 

Understand  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  punish- 
ment, the  nature  and  grade  of  the  offence,  and 
administer  the  punishment  exactly  suited  to  that 
offence ;  secure  his  co-operation  in  the  moral  pur- 
pose of  it. 


XXVI 

HIS   TROUBLES 

His  troubles  are  one  thing;  the  sorrows  that 
come  from  them,  another.  He  has  more  troubles 
than  sorrows,  because  he  manages  to  turn  some 
of  the  latter  into  sport  and  spunk.  Part  of  his 
troubles  are  imaginary,  but  they  are  active  and 
efficient  and  fruitful,  till  he  finds  them  out.  Some 
of  the  real  ones  he  refuses  to  recognise,  and  they 
die  a  natural  death,  unknown  and  unsung,  but 
it  is  pathetic  how  much  real,  downright  suffering 
he  can  go  through,  and  it  is  inspiring  to  see  him 
"keep  smiling"  notwithstanding. 

His  troubles  are  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
is  only  a  child.  To  be  sure,  he  may  be  one  of 
those  peculiar  combinations  of  sensitiveness  and 
censoriousness  which  it  is  hard  to  endure,  and  he 
may  keep  disgruntled  and  disagreeable  all  his  life. 
In  that  case  he  will  be  a  lifelong  sorrow  and  shame 
to  his  family  and  friends.  There  seems  nothing 
to  hope  for,  except  in  the  transforming  grace  of 
God,  and  he  is  apt  to  be  too  much  disgruntled  with 
his  Maker  to  avail  himself  of  any  offered  help. 
He  suffers  because  he  is  cut  bias.  We  drop  that 
kind  of  a  boy  right  here. 

171 


172  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

Or  he  may  have  that  combination  of  egoism  and 
egotism  which  will  persist,  unless  he  can  be  taught 
unselfishness  and  good  sense  by  a  fascinating  ex- 
ample, reinforced  by  an  irresistible  authority. 
He  is  unaware  of  his  failing,  though  no  one  else 
is.  He  suffers  because  he  is  the  centre  of  every- 
thing; people  seem  to  go  by  centrifugal  rather 
than  centripetal  impulse,  and  they  fail  to  revolve 
around  him.  He  suffers  from  an  overweening 
sense  of  self.  There  may  be  hope  for  him,  but 
the  transforming  influence  must  begin  at  once  and 
work  steadily.  His  habits  are  rapidly  forming 
and  turning  his  sentiments  into  crystals.  Crys- 
tals cannot  be  easily  broken. 

Now,  when  we  have  made  due  allowance  for  his 
imaginary  troubles  and  those  which  come  from  an 
almost  hopelessly  bad  make-up,  we  still  have  left 
enough  to  require  very  careful  study  and  accurate 
treatment. 

The  first  element  we  discover  is  his  ignorance 
— hence  his  lack  of  self-control.  He  is  new  and 
he  sees  the  newness  in  a  distorted  and  some- 
what discouraging  light.  He  and  himself  are  not 
familiar  friends  as  yet.  It  was  only  recently  that 
they  met  for  the  first  time.  Sometimes  he  takes 
himself  too  seriously;  sometimes  too  flippantly. 
He  is  constantly  running  into  some  new  nook  and 
corner  and  compartment  of  himself  that  he  was 
not  aware  of  before  and  he  finds  powers  and  fur- 
nishings that  surprise  and  somewhat  bewilder 
him.  This  requires  him  to  readjust  himself  to 


HIS  TROUBLES  173 

himself ;  he  is  fortunate  if  he  is  not  panic-stricken 
and  put  to  flight. 

Another  element  of  complexity  is  the  fact  that 
both  he  and  himself  are  steadily  expanding,  grow- 
ing out  of  each  other's  knowledge  till  he  often  has 
to  say  to  some  newly  arrived  phase,  "It  seems  to 
me  I  have  seen  you  somewhere  before,"  and  he 
must,  even,  now  and  then,  say:  "I  have  not  the 
honour  of  an  acquaintance  with  you."  That  may 
bring  on  sorrow,  especially  if  the  strange  com- 
pany seems  to  be  chilly  or  domineering  toward 
him.  Strange  reactions  into  sorrow  and  depres- 
sion come,  during  which  he  is  chased  and  driven 
and  beaten  by  some  power  within  his  own  person. 

There  is  a  time  when  conscience  begins  its  ac- 
tivity, and  can  give  him  intense  sorrow  till  all 
things  are  working  normally  and  harmoniously. 
The  new  master  brooks  no  interference  and 
sometimes  is  the  occasion  of  acute  pain.  His  feel- 
ings that  have  been  governing  him  must  surrender 
the  reins  to  judgment  and  conscience,  and  they  do 
not  get  into  harness  together  quickly. 

When  the  social  instincts  begin  to  awake  and 
the  bony  structure  has  been  rapidly  thrown  up, 
like  the  skeleton  of  a  skyscraper,  he  has  the  pain 
of  self -consciousness  and  the  sense  of  mal-adjust- 
ment  to  the  world  around  him.  If  the  tender 
flame  should  get  awakened  at  that  time,  he  is  in  a 
state  of  unstable  equilibrium,  lacking  in  quieting 
knowledge  and  reassuring  command  of  himself. 
The  sense  of  that  pervasive  lack  of  perfection 


174  'THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

may  be  so  acute  as  to  depress  him.  The  sense  of 
a  need  that  no  one  may  show  him  how  to  supply 
may  throw  a  very  long  and  dense  shadow  over  him. 
The  thought  of  being  misunderstood  often  tor- 
tures him.  His  humorous  and  playful  tendencies 
are  not  always  as  interesting  to  others  as  to  him- 
self. There  is  a  blend  of  sweetness  and  awkward- 
ness, with  the  latter  prepondering. 

When  some  evil  sweeps  him  for  a  moment  from 
his  feet,  only  the  eye  of  God  can  see  the  shame 
that  tortures  him,  and  no  one  knows  how  gladly 
he  would  listen  to  someone  who  could  set  him  on 
his  feet  again.  His  inability  to  express  his  deep 
affection  for  parents  and  teachers  makes  him  de- 
preciate himself,  whereas  a  little  girl  might  ex- 
press herself  in  words  appropriate  and  accurate 
enough  to  be  printed  in  a  book. 

He  is  conscious  of  affections  and  admirations 
that  he  cannot  express,  and  would  not,  for  fear  of 
being  misunderstood. 

He  longs  for  appreciation,  for  companionship, 
and  suffers  when  he  does  not  get  them.  He  can't 
be  contented  when  people  treat  him  wrongly.  He 
is  called  bad  when  he  knows  he  is  not  intentionally 
so.  He  finds  out  that  some  seemingly  and  pro- 
fessionally good  people  are  vulgar  and  untruth- 
ful, and  he  often  hangs  his  head  in  shame  for  them. 
In  his  discovery  of  the  awfulness  of  death,  he 
thinks  of  it  as  hanging  over  him,  and  no  one  is  apt 
to  teach  him  to  think  calmly  and  confidently  about 
such  realities.  When  a  lad  a  pious  Sunday-school 


HIS  TROUBLES  175 

teacher  gave  me  an  interesting  book  and  on  the 
blank  page  was  written  for  me:  "Memento 
Mori ' '— <  '  Be  mindful  of  death. ' '  Think  of  it ! 

Yes,  a  boy's  sorrows  are  real,  whether  the  cause 
of  them  is  real  or  imaginary.  He  has  three  needs 
at  such  times,  in  fact  at  all  times.  He  needs  a 
friend  who  has  passed  through  similar  experi- 
ences and  who  has  not  forgotten  all  about  them, 
one  who  can  show  a  tactful  companionship  with 
him,  without  impatience  or  obtrusiveness,  one  who 
will  tell  him  the  meaning  of  his  own  nature,  espe- 
cially the  physical  and  emotional;  he  needs  a  good 
deal  of  hearty  play;  he  needs  work  in  which  he 
can  see  that  others  are  concerned. 


XXVII 

THREE    PERILS 

IT  is  worth  while  to  devote  a  separate  chapter 
to  a  consideration  of  certain  inescapable,  though 
not  invincible,  perils  of  boyhood.  They  are  not 
merely  possible  but  actual  perils,  which  he  can  no 
more  fail  to  meet  than  he  can  fail  to  meet  the  ris- 
ing sun  in  the  morning;  for  they  grow  out  of  the 
nature  of  the  boy  himself  and  not  out  of  his  en- 
vironment, though  his  environment  may  either 
sharpen  or  soften  the  perils. 

First  is  the  peril  that  comes  from  his  natural 
and  unguarded  suggestibility.  This  is  especially 
the  peril  of  the  pre-adolescent  boy.  Children  are 
more  responsive  to  suggestion  than  are  older  peo- 
ple, and  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  they  are 
seldom  allowed  to  testify  in  court.  The  exact 
definition  of  suggestion  is  not  to  our  purpose. 
There  may  be  a  subconscious  self,  which  carries 
out  into  thoughts  or  words  or  actions  the  sugges- 
tion made.  Or  it  may  be  merely  the  influence  of 
one  person  over  another.  But  the  power  of  the 
teacher  and  parent  and  friend  is  largely  through 
suggestion. 

The  suggestibility  of  a  given  boy  will  depend 
on  three  things — the  kind  of  temperament  he  has, 

176 


THEEE  PERILS  177 

the  kind  of  training  he  has  received,  and  the  stage 
of  development  he  has  reached.  The  power  of  a 
given  suggestion  will  depend,  in  addition,  on  the 
nature  of  the  suggestion  and  the  person  who 
makes  it. 

These  are  things  that  make  it  a  time  of  peril. 
His  experience  does  not  furnish  him  an  adequate 
criterion  for  judging  of  the  things  suggested;  his 
knowledge  of  motive  is  very  defective;  his  will 
does  not  get  hold  of  its  work,  intelligently  and 
steadily,  till  he  is  in  his  teens.  For  these  reasons 
he  is  ready  to  take  up  with  any  suggestion  that 
appeals  to  his  clamorous  and  discordant  impulses, 
especially  if  it  comes  from  one  whom  he  likes.  It 
appeals  to  curiosity  and  enlists  the  imagination. 
A  good  suggestion  has  almost  as  good  a  chance 
as  a  bad  one,  if  it  has  a  touch  of  pathos  or  love  or 
adventure  or  humour. 

Three  main  sources  of  suggestion  are  to  be 
watched — what  he  sees,  what  he  hears,  and  the 
persons  around  him.  The  pictures  he  sees  reach 
to  his  depths ;  and  the  actions  of  which  he  is  the 
witness  are  very  apt  to  reproduce  themselves  in 
his  imitative  actions.  People  insinuate  them- 
selves into  him  before  he  knows  it.  The  enemies 
of  children  use  these  three  means  for  their  undo- 
ing— books,  pictures  and  persons.  The  picture 
shows  are  not  all  bad,  but  when  they  are  they  are 
disastrously  so;  the  books  are  not  all  vicious,  but 
there  are  too  many  which  are,  and  they  are  within 
their  reach.  Few  of  the  people  they  meet  are 


178  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

immoral,  but  only  one  of  that  kind  is  needed  to 
poison  the  mind  effectively.  The  bad  books  and 
pictures  suggest  cruelty  and  revenge  and  inde- 
cency, and  inculcate  the  spendthrift  habit,  as  well. 
A  boy  was  arrested  in  Chicago,  the  other  day,  for 
breaking  into  a  house ;  and  he  got  the  suggestion' 
by  reading  of  another  boy;  who  tried  the  same 
thing  though  he  failed. 

On  the  other  hand,  good  pictures  and  books 
have  suggestive  power  for  good.  A  little  boy 
named  Henry  Schlieman  listening  to  his  uncle 
reading  a  translation  of  Homer's  "Iliad"  re- 
solves to  discover  the  long  lost  site  of  ancient 
Troy,  and  he  does  it.  Joe  Eeid  has  before  his 
vision  every  minute  the  picture  of  Harry  Peck, 
the  young  man  who  teaches  him  at  Sunday-school ; 
he  meets  the  boys  one  evening  each  week  for  games 
and  reading,  sometimes  goes  with  them  on  a  Sat- 
urday afternoon  nutting  party,  sometimes  on  a 
skating  party,  and,  in  the  summer,  for  a  two  weeks ' 
camp.  When  they  see  how  he  also  attends  to 
business,  as  if  everything  depended  on  it,  no  sug- 
gestion that  ever  came  to  Joe  and  the  other  boys 
is  quite  so  powerful  as  that. 

The  only  way  to  keep  boys  from  meeting  the 
peril  of  suggestion  is  to  kill  them.  The  only  way 
to  protect  them  when  the  peril  assails,  is  to  give 
them  pictures  that  will  arouse  them  to  their  best; 
furnish  them  books  charged  with  an  ennobling 
stimulus;  bring  to  bear  upon  them  personal  in- 
fluences that  will  call  out  their  admiration  for 


THREE  PERILS  179 

those  persons  and  their  aspiration  for  better 
things. 

The  second  peril  is  one  of  the  two  that  come 
with  adolescence.  I  may  call  it  the  peril  of  con- 
fusion due  to  the  sudden  awakening  of  so  many 
new  elements  in  his  nature  and  the  sudden  dis- 
covery that  he  is  in  a  new  world.  His  voice  that 
runs  to  cover  one  minute  in  the  basement  and  the 
next  minute  soars  into  the  sky,  is  a  fit  symbol  of 
the  period  of  confusion  at  which  he  has  arrived. 
The  nerves  are  alternately  tightened  and  un- 
strung. That  period  of  storm  and  stress,  as  it 
has  rightly  been  called,  is  more  fully  described  in 
another  chapter.  It  is  often  a  time  of  despera- 
tion and  discouragement.  Some  boys  have  felt 
at  that  time,  that  life  was  not  worth  living  and 
have,  with  difficulty,  restrained  their  hands  from 
their  own  destruction.  This  has  been  true  not 
only  of  geniuses  but  of  ordinary  boys.  They  are 
out  in  a  large  world  with  discordant  powers,  not 
connected,  in  a  happy  way,  with  any  of  the 
world's  interests  or  people.  The  help  the  boy 
needs  is  evident.  One  who  knows  his  difficulty 
and  shrewdly  establishes  points  of  happy  contact 
with  him,  without  allowing  the  boy  to  suspect  that 
he  knows  his  trouble  or  is  trying  to  help  him,  has 
the  key  to  the  situation  and  can  tide  him  over  the 
rapids. 

The  third  peril  which  belongs  to  the  adolescent 
period  is  due  to  the  development  of  the  sex  in- 
stincts. The  currents  of  new  impulses  may  sweep 


180  THAT  'BOY  OF  YOUES 

him  off  his  feet  into  self-indulgence  in  a  bestial 
way.  That  peril  exists  apart  from  the  character 
of  his  environment,  though  environment  may  make 
it  more  acute,  and  it  is  the  business  of  those  who 
make  his  environment  to  protect  him  even  at  the 
peril  of  their  own  lives.  Obscene  talk  is  like  tin- 
der to  the  inflammable  impulses  of  his  nature. 
Imagination  may  kindle  unquenchable  flames  out 
of  the  sulphurous  material  brought  to  him  in  that 
way. 

What  is  to  be  done  for  his  protection?  Some 
writers  insist  that  accurate  knowledge  of  his  own 
bodily  functions  will  arm  him  for  victory.  Knowl- 
edge of  his  bodily  functions,  as  he  is  able  to  con- 
trol and  utilise  that  knowledge,  is  right,  as  far 
as  it  goes.  But  some  knowledge  is  to  be  with- 
held from  him  even  after  he  has  the  problem  on 
his  hands.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  more 
accurate  the  knowledge  the  more  it  piques  both 
curiosity  and  passion.  We  have  allowed  the  idea 
of  complete  enlightenment  of  children  about  them- 
selves to  carry  us  into  worse  than  unwise  ex- 
tremes. Sophistication  is  safe  only  after  educa- 
tion; education  is  possible  only  as  one  gets  control 
of  himself;  control  of  one's  self  can  be  complete 
only  as  one  comes  under  the  control  of  the  one 
Master  of  our  spirits,  the  one  Lord  of  our  life. 
The  absolutely  essential  protection  comes  through 
his  choice  of  that  One,  whose  will  and  help  he  gets 
in  the  Bible,  with  the  Spirit's  presence  and  as  he 
tries  to  do  the  will  of  that  Master. 


THEEE  PERILS  181 

Whether  you  have  much  or  little  to  tell  him 
about  himself,  you  must  know  all  about  him  from 
a  personal  knowledge  of  him,  from  self-knowledge 
and  from  a  knowledge  of  the  results  of  the  studies 
given  to  boyhood  by  the  students  of  the  subject, 
like  Hall,  Starbuck,  Lee,  Coe  and  such  men.  To 
be  ready  with  desired  information  for  him  about 
himself  is  to  give  him  confidence  in  you.  Not  only 
are  you  to  hold  accurate  knowledge  ready  for  use 
but  you  are  to  give  it  at  the  right  time.  He  is 
sure  to  get  a  knowledge  of  sex  functions.  He  is 
entitled  to  get  it  from  those  who  seek  to  lead  him 
into  self-control  instead  of  exciting  incontrollable 
impulses,  as  is  the  case  when  the  debased  and  the 
vulgar  are  his  teachers.  But  the  knowledge  must 
be  given  only  as  it  is  needed,  and  as  he  can  use  it 
aright.  Knowledge  alone  is  not  enough.  A  no- 
ble sense  of  responsibility  must  be  stirred  and 
noble  emotions  must  drive  out  the  ignoble.  Diet 
is  a  matter  of  great  importance.  Cleanliness  is 
often  a  preventive  of  debasing  thoughts.  Com- 
panionship and  sympathy  may  prove  a  preventive, 
without  the  need  of  much  specific  instruction. 
But  one  other  want  must  be  supplied. 

Knowledge  is  good  as  fast  as  it  can  be  used 
and  as  it  enables  the  boy  to  gain  the  indispen- 
sable assistance  of  the  only  Master.  Parents  and 
Sunday-school  teachers  must  help  him  find  his  real 
Help.  The  physical  director,  who  doesn't  under- 
stand that  deepest  need  of  the  boy  should  not  be 
allowed  to  have  any  part  in  his  training.  To  put 


182  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

it  frankly,  plainly  and  urgently,  the  boy's  only 
hope  of  meeting  these  perils  with  any  satisfactory 
success  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  Friend  of  sinners,  the 
Friend  of  boys ;  the  problem  of  protecting  him  is 
the  problem  of  bringing  him,  by  his  own  choice, 
into  vital  relation  with  Christ.  That  requires  wis- 
dom, tact,  knowledge,  constancy.  And  your  boy 
surely  is  worth  all  of  that. 


XXVIII 

HIS  HOME 

IN  the  midst  of  his  greatest  excitements  and 
enjoyments  there  ought  to  be  a  steady  and  per- 
ceptible pull  at  his  heart  strings  in  the  direction 
of  home;  and  there  will  be,  unless  there  is  some- 
thing very  much  the  matter  with  him,  or  the  home ; 
if  the  trouble  is  with  him,  it  probably  began  with 
the  home.  There  was  presumably,  a  welcome 
for  him  when  he  first  took  his  place  as  a  member 
of  the  family.  That  welcome  must  await  him 
whenever  he  returns  from  work,  play,  or  school. 
If  his  arrival  is  greeted  with  complaints  and  nag- 
ging about  what  he  has  and  has  not  done,  he  will 
make  his  arrival  as  late,  his  departure  as  early  and 
his  absence  as  long  as  possible;  and  he  will  take 
his  permanent  departure  as  speedily  as  circum- 
stances will  permit.  If  he  is  regarded  as  a  use- 
less cog  in  the  machine  he  is  apt  to  throw  it  out 
of  gear.  He  is  very  susceptible  to  suggestion  and 
will  usually  become  what  he  is  treated  as  being, 
whether  he  is  so  at  first  or  not. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  boy  who  heard  that  home 
is  a  type  of  heaven  and  instantly  made  up  his 
mind  never  to  go  to  heaven  if  it  was  in  his  power 
to  escape  such  a  calamity.  He  had  had  enough 

183 


184  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

of  that  kind  of  heaven.  The  boy  has  his  own 
ideas  of  what  a  home  should  be  and  they  may  be 
wrong,  but  those  who  are  making  his  home  for  him 
have  to  work  with  his  ideas  as  well  as  their  own ; 
and  even  when  his  are  inaccurate  they  indicate 
some  of  his  real  needs  and  are  worth  knowing. 

But  when  his  home  is  about  right  and  has  gotten 
at  him  in  a  right  way  from  the  start,  it  will  be  the 
most  fascinating  place  anywhere  to  him.  Every- 
thing is  there,  love  and  welcome  and  appreciation 
and  understanding  of  him,  and  discipline  and  wor- 
ship and  fun  and  laughter,  everything  but  his  boy 
friends  and  the  athletic  grounds  and  some  other 
such  things;  but  he  knows  that  he  can  bring  his 
friends  there  at  suitable,  and  even  at  some  unsuit- 
able times,  and,  while  he  can't  exactly  bring  the 
ball  games  and  the  ice  fields  and  his  other  sports 
into  the  home,  he  can  bring  the  spirit  of  all  his 
sports  with  him.  He  is  usually  sorry  when  the 
moment  comes  to  drop  the  game,  but  when  he 
knows  he  is  going  into  his  dear  home,  it  alleviates 
his  sorrow. 

And  when  he  goes  out  into  the  great  world,  to 
try  his  fortunes,  it  is  not  because  he  loves  his 
home  less  but  because  it  has  prepared  him  for  his 
career  and  he  feels  its  power  all  the  more.  One 
of  the  noblest  impulses  he  will  ever  cherish  will 
be  the  desire  to  reflect  credit  on  the  home  that 
made  him.  All  this  is  on  the  assumption  that  he 
had  the  fortune  to  get  a  good  home,  at  the  draw- 
ing, for  it  seems  somewhat  like  a  lottery. 


HIS  HOME  185 

He  is  a  distinct  part  of  the  household  and  is  en- 
titled to  a  definite  place  in  it  where  he  can  be 
monarch  of  all  he  surveys.  It  is  mighty  comfort- 
ing to  him  to  know  that  there  is  one  room  where 
he  is  at  home  with  himself. 

He  is  also  entitled  to  a  position  in  the  house- 
hold, as  well  as  to  a  place  in  the  house,  and  his 
standing  must  be  in  their  understanding.  If  he 
gets  the  right  standing  he  is  willing  to  do  a  lot  of 
running  for  the  benefit  of  the  family.  It  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  he  must  work  because  someone 
else  is  the  bread-winner  and  he  ought  to  be  will- 
ing to  do  something.  Another  motive  must  be 
touched,  that  he  is  a  part  of  the  household  and 
what  he  can  do  is  of  the  highest  value  in  itself. 
And  so  it  is. 

Manual  labour  has  mental  and  moral  value ;  and 
when  special  talents  are  utilised  it  gives  a  special 
training  for  his  life  work.  When  they  are  used  in 
the  equipment  of  the  home,  he  derives  a  special 
reward  from  it.  Drawing,  painting,  music,  mod- 
elling, writing,  reading  aloud,  reciting, — these 
may  have  a  productive  place  in  his  home  life.  He 
has  to  be  allowed  to  be  his  own  self  and  to  do  what 
he  can  do.  When  Tom's  mother  and  Joe's  mother 
brag  each  on  the  other's  boy  and  nag,  each  her 
own,  each  is  entirely  unworthy  of  her  boy.  Be- 
sides, a  boy  must  be  doing  what  he  is  to  be  doing 
in  the  future  and  getting  ready  for  it — interesting 
and  intelligent  work. 

His  place  in  the  home  is  not  in  the  centre,  nor 


186  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

on  the  throne,  but  by  the  side,  or  under  the  wing, 
of  the  head  of  the  home.  He  is  a  boy,  but  only  a 
boy.  He  holds  the  future,  but  he  must  be  held  at 
present.  He  is  not  to  be  a  prig,  an  overfed  pet; 
nor  a  pig,  overfed  pork ;  nor  a  despot,  an  over-in- 
dulged dependent.  He  is  not  the  centre  about 
which  the  family  revolves,  nor  a  tyrant  adapting 
it  to  his  caprices.  When  a  boy  rules  the  home 
he  ruins  himself.  He  is  to  be  adjusted  to  the 
family  life  and  not  the  reverse.  He  may  be  a  born 
ruler,  but  is  to  be  under  regents  till  he  comes  into 
his  own  inheritance  and  learns  how  to  rule. 

But  in  that  subordination,  he  is  entitled  to  find 
respect  for  his  personality,  nis  talents,  his  indi- 
vidual tastes,  his  elemental  and  God-given  right 
of  choice,  on  the  proper  exercise  of  which  his  ef- 
ficiency in  life  depends.  Even  from  the  start,  his 
will  must  not  be  over-ridden,  but  stimulated  and 
steered.  If  there  is  a  clash  between  his  will  and 
that  of  the  household  head,  all  that  the  latter  can 
do  is  to  set  forth  the  penalty  of  the  wrong  choice 
and  let  him  have  all  the  facts  of  the  case  before 
him  in  the  decision.  Let  him  know  that  the  pen- 
alties cannot  be  escaped,  then  let  his  own  volition 
work  it  out. 

The  plans  for  him  must  be  positive,  construc- 
tive, optimistic,  sympathetic ;  not  negative,  nor 
destructive,  nor  gloomy,  nor  autocratic.  Those 
plans  must  be  adapted  to  him  and  must  adapt  him 
to  the  home  people.  He  and  his  father  can  do 
team  work,  as  he  assists  with  manual  or  mental  or 


HIS  HOME  187 

mechanical  labor — with  the  typewriter,  or  at  book- 
keeping or  garden-making  or  farming.  And  yet 
obedience  must  often  be  exacted  of  him,  without 
explanation  or  option,  and  he  must  know  what  au- 
thority means. 

Ordinarily,  when  his  sense  of  partnership  with 
his  parents  has  been  intelligently  and  practically 
nurtured,  he  gets  discipline  and  delight,  efficiency 
and  satisfaction,  out  of  it.  It  is  a  whole  univer- 
sity in  embryo,  with  technology  thrown  in.  Even 
the  care  of  pets  is  of  great  importance  in  teaching 
him  gentleness  and  unselfishness  and  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility. They  make  use  of  the  whole  boy  in 
that  way.  His  imagination  comes  to  the  aid  of 
the  family.  To  call  a  boy  good  for  nothing  and 
lazy  just  because  he  dreams  is  a  degradation  of 
the  one  who  says  it.  To  accuse  him  of  doing  a 
given  wrong  is  to  suggest  to  his  imagination  that 
form  of  wrong-doing.  To  give  him  the  sense  of 
appreciation  is  to  suggest  that  he  must  be  worthy 
of  appreciation. 

True  respect  for  him  is  discriminating  and  re- 
quires self-respect  in  his  parents.  No  normal 
parent  may  blame  him  for  the  things  that  merely 
indicate  immaturity  or  for  the  evil  results  of  bad 
home  influence.  Kespect  for  him  makes  certain 
hours  luminous — the  home-coming  hour,  the  meal 
hour,  the  play  hour.  On  those  hours  life's  high 
lights  must  gleam. 

One  of  the  interesting  occasions  is  the  family 
gathering  at  the  table  and  it  can 't  happen  any  too 


188  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

often  to  suit  him.  My  memory  holds  very  few  oc- 
casions so  gratefully  as  the  happy  meal  hours. 
They  were  social  times  and  all  six  of  us  children 
were  ready  for  joke  and  jest  and  frolic  and  fun, 
till  it  often  grew  hilarious  and  sometimes  uproar- 
ious. But  when  the  table  is  made  the  place  for  all 
sorts  of  snarling  and  reproving  and  correcting 
and  wrangling,  the  right  kind  of  a  boy  will  feel 
disgraced  by  it.  It  spells  ruin  for  him  unless  he 
recoils  the  other  way  in  sheer  disgust,  or  finds 
someone  in  the  circle  who  lives  above  it  and  lifts 
him  up,  too. 

There  are  profound  reasons  why  no  child  should 
ever  hear  adverse  comment  on  another  person, 
except  when  it  is  necessary  for  his  protection;  a 
father  is  recreant  to  his  high  trust  when  he  al- 
lows any  one  to  express  himself  in  the  presence 
of  his  boy  in  that  way,  even  if  he  has  to  incur  the 
dislike  of  the  thoughtless  or  the  self-righteous 
pharisee,  by  rebuking  such  a  person. 

There  can  be  nothing  said  about  his  home  more 
to  his  liking  than  an  eminent  divine  said  in  an  ad- 
dress not  long  ago.  He  wants  to  find  in  his  home 
not  a  dormitory,  or  club,  but  a  place  where  all  the 
home  sentiments  are  blessed  and  dominant.  He 
also  wants  consistency.  No  deception  need  be 
tried  on  him.  He  also  looks  for  piety  in  his  home ; 
also  simplicity,  that  is,  he  wants  it  to  be  simply  a 
home.  This  is  right,  for  piety  means  that  the  peo- 
ple in  the  home  and  the  boy  get  together  in  the 
most  loving  way  with  some  daily  recognition  of 


HIS  HOME  189 

that  other  One  whom  they  learn  to  call  the  great 
Father. 

The  boy  must  be  trusted  and  have  the  exhila- 
rating sense  of  it,  as  they  trusted  the  boys  at 
Eugby.  He  must  find  in  the  spirit  of  the  home- 
makers  the  spirit  into  which  he  will  grow,  more 
and  more.  He  must  find  knowledge  of  delicate 
things  in  a  way  that  will  not  excite  unwholesome 
curiosity.  He  must  have  a  share  in  the  work,  in 
the  deeper  thoughts  and  in  the  special  honours  and 
ambitions  of  his  home.  He  likes  that,  and  it  has 
a  profound  educative  value  for  him. 


XXIX 

HIS  BOOM 

HE  needs  a  room  of  Ms  own — needs  it  in  his 
business  of  being  a  boy.  If  he  does  not  get  it  at 
home  he  always  wants  to  establish  headquarters 
somewhere  else — on  the  street  corner,  or  a  va- 
cant lot,  or  in  an  old  deserted  house,  or  in  some 
basement,  or  in  another  boy's  home ;  which  always 
lessens  his  attachment  to  his  own  home.  The 
rule  is  that  when  he  will  not  stay  at  home,  he  is 
pushed  out  for  lack  of  a  room.  There  is  usually 
no  room  for  him  at  home  unless  there  is  a  room 
for  him. 

He  is  not  apt  to  be  blind  to  the  injustice  of  it, 
either.  His  little  sister,  bless  her  dear  heart,  has 
the  daintiest  room  in  the  house,  and  mamma  and 
papa  bring  her  all  sorts  of  exquisite  souvenirs  and 
decorations,  till  she  is  like  a  pink  rose  in  a  garden 
of  exotics.  But  he  is  often  put  into  any  kind  of 
a  corner,  with  instructions  not  to  interfere  with 
what  little  he  finds  there  and  not  to  make  any 
noise,  as  he  goes  to  his  gloomy  quarters,  nor  while 
he  is  there,  nor  on  his  way  back,  on  pain  of  being 
asked  to  vacate  the  house;  and  if  his  sense  of 
chumship  overrides  his  pride  enough  to  bring  in 
another  boy,  now  and  then,  he  is  halted  at  the 

190 


HIS  EOOM  191 

door  with  a  shrill  voice  which  informs  him  that 
he  is  not  to  bring  other  boys  home  with  him. 
Then  when  he  is  compelled  to  take  that  bundle  of 
energy  which  he  carries  around  with  him  out  of 
the  house  and  is  reinforced  by  some  other  boys, 
stocked  up  with  similar  supplies  of  energy,  and 
they  go  off  and  get  into  mischief,  the  people  shake 
their  stupid  heads  and  say,  "  Those  bad  boys 
again, "  when  they  would  do  far  more  wisely  if 
they  would  organise  a  vigilance  committee  to  wait 
on  the  parents  of  those  boys. 

The  light  of  the  library  is  good  for  his  eyes,  but 
that  is  not  enough.  A  corner  of  the  family  room 
is  better  than  nothing,  provided  that  corner  is 
recognised  as  his  own  property  at  certain  impor- 
tant times;  and  many  a  boy — and  girl,  too — can 
look  back  to  happy  moments  when  the  crowd  of 
little  folks  was  playing  at  one  end  of  the  room  and 
father  and  mother  were  talking  or  reading  by  the 
light  glowing  at  the  other  end  of  that  dear  room. 
But  even  that  is  not  all  he  wants. 

He  has  the  proprietary  instinct  and  that  cannot 
be  fully  gratified  without  a  room  he  can  call  his 
own.  The  mere  possession  of  that  room  may  be 
the  training  that  will  make  him  a  useful  citizen 
and  property  holder  and  keep  him  from  becoming 
improvident  and  a  vagabond.  It  is  one  and  the 
same  instinct  with  him  and  hence  his  room  has  a 
permanent  value  to  him. 

Besides,  he  has  immediate  need  for  it.  It  is  a 
place  where  he  can  let  off  steam  and  make  more 


192  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

naise  than  could  be  borne  in  any  other  part  of  the 
house.  That  is  a  relief  to  the  rest  of  the  family 
for  they  can  persuade  him  to  be  fairly  quiet 
everywhere  else  when  he  knows  that  there  is  one 
room  always  at  his  disposal.  That  room  will  en- 
able him  to  secure  valuable  voice  culture. 

His  self-respect  and  social  standing  require  that 
he  have  a  place  to  which  he  can  bring  his  friends, 
both  informally  as  individuals  and  formally  as  a 
club  or  gang.  If  he  brings  them  there  they  will 
be  in  a  respectable  place  and  not  be  apt  to  get 
their  relatives  into  trouble.  He  will  be  proud  to 
have  his  parents  become  honorary  or  sustaining 
members  of  the  club ;  that  will  give  those  parents 
a  chance  to  take  the  sting  out  of  all  mischief  and 
renew  the  joys  of  long  ago.  If  his  sister  has  a 
room  to  which  her  little  friends  can  come  with 
their  dolls  and  have  the  sweetest  time  till  they 
get  to  pouting  and  all  go  home,  without  umbrel- 
las, in  a  shower  of  tears,  surely  he  must  have  a 
place  for  his  friends  too.  His  room  is  a  social 
centre  training  him  for  life. 

He  wants  a  room  where  he  can  objectify  his 
thoughts  by  means  of  the  things  he  puts  into  it. 
The  articles,  both  useful  and  ornamental,  will 
match  up  with  his  inner  self.  If  he  is  an  artist,  he 
will  have  pictures,  and  perhaps  make  some ;  if  he 
is  musical,  he  will  no  doubt  have  a  banjo  or  man- 
dolin or  cornet,  and  if  he  is  just  a  boy,  he  will 
probably  have  some  hair-raising  pictures  and  at 
least  a  mouth-harp  anyhow. 


HIS  BOOM  193 

Dainty  bed-spreads  are  a  work  of  supereroga- 
tion ;  his  room  is  no  parlor,  it  is  a  den.  Rugs  and 
carpets  can  come  in  only  under  strict  regulations. 
It  is  hard  to  make  them  harmonise  with  boys.  His 
decorations  will  be  an  aggregation  of  things — 
mostly  the  implements  and  emblems  of  sport,  with 
pennants  in  the  place  of  honor — balls  and  bats 
and  gloves  and  knives  and  all  the  kinds  of  fire- 
arms it  is  safe  to  allow  him,  from  a  squirt  gun  to 
a  Winchester.  Flags  are  one  of  his  specialties. 
He  is  sure  to  gather  up  the  flags  of  various  coun- 
tries, put  "Old  Glory"  in  the  centre  and  drape 
the  others  around  it  to  add  to  its  glory.  If  he 
has  the  taste  of  a  naturalist,  he  is  likely  to  have 
as  large  a  collection  of  bugs,  beetles,  flies,  toads, 
snails,  birds,  snakes  and  grasshoppers  as  he  can, 
and  as  many  of  them  alive  as  possible. 

In  after  years  he  will  preserve  those  collections 
as  happy  memories,  while  others  will  be  able  to 
trace  a  vital  connection  between  the  substantial 
citizen,  with  his  thrift  and  his  friendships,  and  the 
lad  who  once  lived  and  loved  and  yelled  and 
dreamed;  for  the  virtues  of  self-dependence,  self- 
control,  responsibility  for  one's  own  belongings, 
companionship,  imagination,  originality  and  co- 
operation will  have  been  nurtured  by  that  room. 


XXX 

HIS  FATHER 

His  father  is  always  a  character  of  importance, 
but  there  comes  a  time  when  he  becomes  the  most 
valuable  asset  among  all  the  boy's  possessions. 
It  is  not  only  good  for  a  man  to  have  a  boy,  but 
more  important  that  the  boy  have  him.  When 
they  have  and  hold  each  other,  you  find  a  condi- 
tion that  calls  for  both  gratification  and  gratitude. 
There  is  no  separate  chapter  given  here  to  the 
discussion  of  the  mother,  because,  as  a  rule,  the 
father  needs  suggestions  and  stimulus  more  than 
the  mother,  and  I  feel  less  competent  to  speak  to 
mothers  than  to  fathers. 

The  story  has  been  told  that  when  Kermit 
Eoosevelt,  while  his  father  was  president,  started 
to  the  public  school,  he  was  asked  certain  routine 
questions,  to  which  he  gave  answer  about  as  fol- 
lows: "What  is  your  name?"  "Kermit  Eoose- 
velt." "Where  do  you  live?"  "At  the  White 
House."  "What  is  your  father's  name?" 
' « Theodore  Eoosevelt. "  "  What  is  your  father ! ' ' 
"My  father— why,  my  father  is  IT."  That 
leaves  nothing  to  be  desired. 

He  has  two  very  desirable  qualifications  for  his 
fathership,  whatever  kind  of  a  man  he  may  be. 

194 


HIS  FATHEK  195 

First  of  all  it  is  very  much  to  his  credit  and  ad- 
vantage that  he  was  once  a  boy,  and  that  he  can 
have  a  pair  of  boys  before  his  mind  every  day — 
his  own  boy  and  himself  as  he  was  when  a  boy. 
He  may  remember  exactly  what  he  was  thinking 
about  and  trying  to  do,  when  he  was  the  age  of 
his  boy.  Moreover,  he  may  know  where  he  missed 
it,  or  hit  it  as  the  case  may  be,  and  what  to  think 
of  his  boy  and  what  to  do  for  him.  He  sees  two 
boys  growing  up,  side  by  side,  the  boy  of  to-day 
and  the  boy  of  yesterday,  the  boy  becoming  a  man 
and  the  boy  already  a  man  and  a  father,  but  now 
becoming  a  boy  again. 

The  other  qualification  is  that  his  boy  is  anx- 
ious to  become  a  man.  That,  of  course,  is  when 
he  is  past  the  age  of  Paul  Dombey,  of  whom  Dr. 
Blimber  asked :  * '  Shall  we  make  a  man  of  him  ? ' ' 
and  Paul  said:  "I  would  rather  be  a  child. " 
Truly  does  Charles  Dudley  Warner  say:  "One 
of  the  best  things  in  the  world  is  to  be  a  boy ;  it  re- 
quires no  experience,  though  it  needs  some  prac- 
tice to  be  a  good  one.  The  disadvantage  of  the  po- 
sition is  that  it  does  not  last  long  enough;  it  is  soon 
over ;  just  as  you  get  used  to  being  a  boy,  you  have 
to  be  something  else,  with  a  good  deal  more  work 
to  do  and  not  half  so  much  fun."  Just  as  truly 
does  the  same  shrewd  and  genial  writer  say, 
"And  yet  every  boy  is  anxious  to  be  a  man  and  is 
very  uneasy  with  the  restrictions  that  are  put 
upon  him  as  a  boy." 

Because  he  wants  to  be  a  man,  there  is  a  time 


196  THAT  'BOY  OF  YOUES 

when  he  ceases  to  be  a  " mamma  boy,"  as  he  prob- 
ably was  till  ten  years  old  or  more ;  he  loses  inter- 
est in  the  feminine  point  of  view  and  becomes 
completely  and  exclusively  possessed  by  the  mas- 
culine. That  is  the  time  when  his  father  first 
begins  to  loom  large.  Then  comes  his  father's 
great  opportunity.  Then  memory  begins  to  work 
and  the  lad  of  to-day  and  the  lad  of  yesterday 
lock  arms  and  march  together.  The  true  father 
becomes  the  companion,  the  dominant  companion, 
of  his  son.  He  does  that  if — if  he  has  a  memory ; 
if  he  has  any  idea  of  the  value  of  life ;  if  he  is  much 
of  a  father. 

The  boy  will  probably  find  out,  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  later,  how  he  had  his  father  keyed  up  and 
in  a  quiver  all  over,  during  those  critical  years  of 
the  youngster 's  life ;  and  when  he  does  find  it  out, 
they  will  be  still  dearer  friends.  For  that  father 
mounts  guard  and  does  duty  in  the  boy's  dark- 
ness, watching  the  foes  that  he  sees  standing  along 
the  road  anxious  to  defeat  and  degrade  the  boy, 
just  as  his  father  stood  guard  over  him  when  he 
was  surrounded  by  invisible  foes;  for  if  there  is 
one  thing  a  boy  usually  declines  to  recognise  it 
is  the  presence  of  danger,  whether  physical  or 
moral. 

That  father  will  be  keyed  up  to  be  worth  imi- 
tating, for  he  knows  what  is  going  on  in  that  boy's 
soul — knows  he  is  imitating  his  father,  just  as 
nature  tells  him  to  do.  Therein  we  discover  an- 
other thing  in  the  man's  favour :  the  boy  has  never 


HIS  FATHER  197 

passed  that  way  before  and  he  is  following  a  trail 
blazed  and  tramped  for  him. 

The  special  perils  of  boyhood,  which  are  spoken 
of  in  a  previous  chapter,  that  father  knows — 
knows  from  experience  and  from  a  constant  ob- 
servation of  the  boy,  as  the  latter  passes  through 
his  critical  stages.  He  remembers  how  he  met 
them  and  came  out  victor,  or  was  vanquished.  He 
recalls  those  that  were  due  to  his  human  nature, 
those  that  only  a  boy  could  feel  and  those  that 
were  due  to  the  special  periods  of  his  development. 

He  remembers  the  danger  that  came  from  fond- 
ness for  eating,  from  his  vanity,  from  his  temper, 
from  the  rapid  awakening  of  the  sex  impulses. 
And  that  father  guards  that  boy  as  no  mother 
could,  guards  him  as  the  priceless  treasure  of  his 
life,  for  whom  nothing  is  too  good,  for  whom  he 
would  gladly  give  every  drop  of  blood  in  his  veins. 

That  father  knows  that  his  boy  needs  knowl- 
edge about  himself,  his  body  and  all  its  profound 
functions,  and  he  must  not  be  left  to  gain  it  from 
the  vulgar  and  lascivious,  from  boys  of  the  street 
and  malicious  men  who  work  his  imagination  ir- 
remediable harm.  The  father  knows  that,  when 
passion  is  strongest  and  self-knowledge  is  small- 
est and  self-control  is  weakest,  he  has  to  stay 
closest  to  him,  in  thought  and  sympathy. 

But  when  that  father  is  mean  and  selfish  and 
tyrannical  and  unfair  and  hypocritical;  when  he 
is  always  telling  how  good  he  was  as  a  boy,  and 
makes  the  story  more  rosy  the  older  he  grows; 


198  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

when  lie  drives  instead  of  drawing  the  boy ;  when 
he  holds  him  by  the  collar  instead  of  his  con- 
science and  uses  check  reins  and  choke-straps; 
when  his  method  is  repression  rather  than  ex- 
pression— then  woe  betide  both  father  and  son. 
As  Dr.  Merrill  says :  * '  The  father  is  a  part  of  all 
the  boy's  troubles." 

Nature  has  given  him  two  things  to  compen- 
sate for  his  inexperience  and  insure  his  safe  jour- 
ney over  the  unknown  path — admiration  for  the 
man  who  is  to  act  as  escort,  because  he  is  a  man, 
and  is  the  particular  man  that  belongs  to  him ;  an 
instinct  for  following  and  imitating  him,  that 
works  automatically. 

Under  the  shadow  of  the  pyramids  Napoleon 
said  to  his  soldiers:  " Forty  centuries  look  down 
upon  you";  but  that  father  knows  that  all  the 
centuries  and  generations  to  come  are  anx- 
ious about  his  son.  He  is  not  only  to  link  the  boy 
to  him,  but  he  stands  as  a  representative 
of  the  Heavenly  Father  and  must  give  him 
his  really  working  idea  of  what  that  Heav- 
enly Father  is.  At  the  same  time  he  fills  that 
little  soul's  ideal  of  manliness,  for  he  can  run 
and  jump  and  skate  and  wrestle  and  ride  a  horse 
and  whiz  on  a  wheel.  He  is  not  only  law-giver 
but  hero  now. 

Some  things  that  a  father  must  do  have  been 
already  suggested.  Now  let  it  be  said  that  he  must 
do  them  in  a  way  to  impress  the  boy's  mind  with 
three  things : 


HIS  FATHER  199 

1.  That  his   father  knows  him   through   and 
through,  so  much  so  that  he  cannot  be  deceived 
about  any  act  or  motive.    That  boy  must  feel  the 
grip  of  a  master  in  his  father's  hand. 

2.  That  his  father  loves  him  as  well  as  knows 
him.    It  is  not  a  knowledge  that  makes  him  im- 
patient, but  rather  makes  him  more  patient. 

3.  That  his  father  was  once  a  boy  and  had  the 
same  weaknesses  and  needed  the  same  help  from 
his  own  father.    It  is  not  a  bad  thing,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  very  desirable  thing,  that  his  father  tell 
the  story  of  his  struggles  with  the  same  difficulties, 
even  if  he  has  to  confess  some  things  that  cause 
him  sorrow.    He  will  be  everything  he  knows  his 
boy  ought  to  be.    Yes,  the  good  father  will  know 
and  love  and  associate  with  his  boy,  direct  him,  join 
his  gang,  go  fishing,  hunting,  camping,  rambling, 
working,  worshipping  with  him,  and  each  will 
think  that  life  is  worth  living. 


XXXI 

HIS  BROTHER  AND  SISTEB 

IF  he  has  not  a  brother  and  sister  he  is  a  most 
unfortunate  creature,  almost  as  unfortunate  as  if 
he  had  no  parents.  When  the  home  is  full  of 
children,  all  the  better ;  and,  best  of  all,  if  they  are 
as  near  to  his  age  as  they  conveniently  can  be. 
They  will  do  as  much  to  train  him  as  the  average 
parents  and  almost  as  much  as  the  best  of  parents. 
The  trouble  of  bringing  up  an  extra  boy  or  two 
is  more  than  justified  by  the  extra  boyhood  they 
will  produce  in  each  one  of  them. 

An  only  child  is  at  a  very  serious  disadvantage, 
especially  if  he  is  a  boy ;  for  a  girl  can  stay  in  and 
become  a  companion  for  her  mother,  but  the  av- 
erage boy  has  a  fermentation  going  on  inside  of 
him  that  he  must  have  some  help  with  or  the  house 
will  become  too  small  for  him. 

I  have  no  desire  to  make  the  life  of  any  "only 
boy"  who  may  read  these  words  more  miserable 
than  necessary  by  telling  him  how  unfortunate 
he  is,  but  the  truth  must  be  told,  even  in  this  case 
and  at  the  peril  of  making  others  uncomfortable, 
for  there  may  be  some  who  ought  to  know  the 
facts.  We  might  as  well  issue  our  catalogue  of 
woes  of  the  "only  boy"  at  this  point,  and  then  go 

200 


HIS  BROTHER  AND  SISTER         201 

on  to  something  more  exhilarating,  if  not  more 
hilarious. 

'The  "only  boy"  is  apt  to  get  spoiled.  His  par- 
ents concentrate  all  their  attention  on  him,  instead 
of  distributing  it  to  a  half  dozen.  They  are  al- 
most sure  to  pet  him  too  much.  Every  child 
ought  to  be  appreciated  and  wisely  praised  but 
petting  and  coddling  are  another  matter.  They 
do  too  much  for  him  and  do  not  exact  enough  from 
him.  If  they  don't  spoil  him  by  too  much  petting, 
they  may  overdo  his  training.  He  may  want  his 
own  way  and  get  it,  much  to  his  own  injury.  He 
is  in  danger  of  becoming  any  one,  or  all,  of  sev- 
eral kinds  of  undesirable  citizens — boss,  prig, 
dude,  coward,  or  a  Lucrezia  Borgia,  in  trousers; 
or  he  may  simply  be  a  "little  man,"  old  and  in- 
firm before  he  cuts  his  eyeteeth.  The  "only  boy" 
gives  his  parents  all  the  greater  work  in  the  pre- 
ventive measures  required,  and  in  supplying  to 
him  the  companionship  he  needs  and  would  get 
from  brothers  and  sisters. 

He  grows  up  without  the  friction  between  him- 
self and  other  children  which  is  so  necessary  to 
enable  a  child  to  find  himself.  He  has  no  one  to 
quarrel  with  and  that  is  an  irremediable  loss.  He 
has  a  hard  time  to  learn  his  rights,  or  the  rights 
of  others  all  by  himself  and  needs  some  very 
excellent  parents  to  repair  the  deficit.  It  cannot 
be  said  that  the  "only  child"  is  foredoomed  to 
failure.  To  be  sure,  from  larger  families  have 
come  most  of  our  great  men  and  women,  and  fam- 


202  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

ilies  with  an  only  child  have  furnished  more  thai* 
their  ratio  of  the  useless  and  criminal  classes,  and 
yet  some  only  children  have  been  great  and  good. 
We  are  but  taking  averages  and  indicating  prob- 
abilities. 

An  older  brother  is  simply  indispensable  to  the 
little  boy's  happiness  and  the  little  brother  is  an 
important  part  of  the  older  boy's  life,  especially 
if  their  ages  are  close  together.  If  some  years 
are  between  them  they  are  both  to  be  pitied.  The 
little  boy  will  be  pathetically  tagging  after  the 
older  one  whose  tastes  and  companions  are  in 
advance,  his  little  heart  aching  to  follow  and 
breaking  because  he  can't.  The  older  one  will  get 
out  of  patience  and  be  rough,  but  even  so  it  is  bet- 
ter for  either  one  of  them  than  to  be  an  only  child. 

With  his  sister  he  can't  well  be  a  perfect  com- 
rade, for  the  simple  reason  that  she  is  a  girl  and 
he  is  a  boy,  yet  there  are  great  enjoyments  and 
some  essential  training  for  them  both  as  they  play 
together  and  have  other  interests  in  common.  A 
little  sister  is  sure  to  admire  his  greater  strength 
and  daring  and  make  him  her  ideal  and  hero.  A 
vigorous,  manly  boy  can  scarcely  imagine  the 
pride  a  younger  sister  takes  in  him.  That  is  a 
benefit  to  him  beyond  computation.  It  wakens  in 
him  the  sense  of  responsibility  for  her  and  that 
develops  character.  She  checks  his  tendency  to- 
ward roughness,  while  under  his  influence  she  be- 
comes less  delicate  and  more  wholesome. 

There  seem  to  be  two  periods  of  companionship 


HIS  BROTHER  AND  SISTER        203 

between  him  and  his  sister.  One  comes  very 
early,  before  either  can  reason  about  it,  and  they 
are  ready  to  cry,  or  fight,  or  suffer  for  each  other ; 
the  other  is  years  later,  when  he  is  in  the  social 
era  of  life  and  is  looking  on  girls  with  new  eyes. 
Then  his  sister  often  becomes  a  new  companion, 
for  he  learns  a  new  appreciation  of  her.  But  he 
and  his  brother  have  common  interests,  all  the 
way  through. 

One  advantage  is  that  he  gets  the  benefit  of 
the  other  children's  presence  in  the  house,  without 
being  fully  aware  of  the  advantage ;  he  may  even 
think  they  are  very  undesirable  members  of  the 
family  yet  still  become  more  deeply  indebted  to 
them  for  his  training,  each  year.  From  the  way 
they  often  talk,  we  might  conclude  that  they  re- 
gard each  other  with  deadly,  incurable  enmity. 
The  showers  of  verbal  missiles  they  rain  down 
on  each  other 's  heads  surely  portend  life-long  dis- 
aster to  their  friendship,  but  the  next  moment  it 
is  " clear  shining  after  rain";  they  instantly  be- 
come confidential  allies  against  foes  within  and 
without,  whether  those  foes  are  the  older  ones 
who  foolishly  interfere,  or  other  children  who 
dare  to  taunt  them.  Disagreements  and  quarrels 
they  do  not  regard  as  incompatible  with  friend- 
ship or  good  manners.  It  is  not  the  quarrelling 
that  is  always  wrong;  it  is  the  noise  that  is  unen- 
durable and  requires  suppressing.  If  a  snarling 
nature  is  found  in  a  child  it  is  a  horrible  inherit- 
ance, likely  to  become  permanent,  if  trained  by 


204  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

the  example  of  those  from  whom  he  inherits  it. 
God  have  mercy  on  them  and  steer  their  lives  into 
peaceful  waters ! 

A  certain  amount  of  discord  seems  unavoidable 
and  there  are  two  compensations.  One  is  that 
they  know  how  to  end  their  troubles  without  in- 
jury, except  to  the  ears  and  fears  of  the  onlooker. 
Nature  attends  to  it.  Interference  with  their 
logomachy  is  usually  a  failure  and  brings  only 
artificial  results;  sometimes  it  cultivates  a  whin- 
ing spirit  or  the  feeling  of  being  ill-used,  in  a  child. 
Eepression  and  exhortation  accomplish  little  else 
than  secure  armed  neutrality. 

The  other  compensation  is  that  the  children  are 
training  each  other,  even  when  they  are  discord- 
ant, provided  the  discords  are  not  habitual. 
They  get  experience  in  applying  the  principles 
they  have  been  taught ;  and  they  usually  succeed 
to  the  satisfaction  of  both  affirmative  and  nega- 
tive, plaintiff  and  defendant — especially  if  the 
principles  taught  have  been  illuminated  in  the 
practices  of  their  parents.  These  contests  in  wit 
and  skill  and  strength  augment  their  powers,  be- 
cause each  child  learns  by  experience  where  his 
rights  end  and  those  of  others  begin;  learns  self- 
control  and  altruism;  learns  how  to  take  defeat 
without  whining  or  tale-bearing;  learns  how  to 
take  care  of  himself  when  he  meets  outside  chil- 
dren and  yet  respect  their  rights.  In  a  family  of 
several,  no  one  child  can  be  boss,  or  get  all  he 
wants,  or  have  his  way  about  everything.  Per- 


HIS  BROTHER  AND  SISTER        205 

haps  the  boy  and  his  brother  and  sister  are  ren- 
dering their  greatest  service  to  humanity  in  train- 
ing their  parents  in  those  powers  of  insight, 
sympathy,  self-control  and  self-assertion,  required 
in  bringing  up  such  a  group  of  children.  For- 
tunate for  the  parents,  as  well,  if  the  family  is 
not  a  "one  child "  family. 


XXXII 

HIS  READING 

IT  is  very  seldom  you  find  a  boy  who  doesn't 
like  to  read  and  when  you  do  find  that  exception, 
it  is  usually  one  who  has  unusual  tastes  for  some- 
thing else,  or  has  not  learned  what  a  time  he  can 
have  at  reading.  When  he  does  get  at  the  busi- 
ness of  reading  he  is  seldom  satisfied  with  less 
than  a  book  a  day. 

Of  course,  his  tastes  are  unformed  and  are  not 
at  all  versatile.  It  is  before  the  reasoning  and 
the  self -directing  powers  are  awake  and  at  work 
and  he  never  wants  books  that  appeal  to  what  he 
doesn't  have.  What  he  reads  must  appeal  to 
those  impulses  and  that  imagination  which  are 
there  to  start  with,  or  he  will  not  read  it.  That 
limits  the  literature  to  a  certain  class.  It  must 
have  action  and  adventure.  It  must  conform  to  a 
boy's  definition  of  a  novel — "plenty  of  talk  and 
something  doing  on  every  page."  It  must  be  en- 
tirely free  from  abstract  reasoning  and  general- 
isations, except  of  the  most  patent  and  appealing 
kind,  but  it  must  be  vivid  and  vital,  with  all  the 
interests  of  people  who  have  their  veins  full  of 
red  blood. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  exclude  history  and  sci- 
206 


HIS  EEADING  207 

ence  and  politics  and  ethics  and  religion  from  the 
books  he  will  willingly  read;  but  those  teachings 
must  be  put  in  the  form  of  life,  with  thrilling  and 
manly  action.  He  will  enjoy  them  and  call  for 
more.  He  will  be  getting  what  he  needs,  but  he 
would  revolt  at  it  if  it  were  put  in  a  didactic  form. 
It  is  possible  to  put  the  things  that  are  best  for 
his  growing  intellect,  his  awakening  conscience 
and  his  glowing  impulses  in  a  form  to  be  very  fas- 
cinating to  him  and  the  form  may  be  effectively 
varied  from  stage  to  stage  of  his  advance. 

It  is  also  possible,  and  very  easy,  to  allow 
his  reading  to  become  exactly  what  it  ought  not 
to  become  at  a  particular  time — if  he  reads  liter- 
ature that  gives  the  attractions  of  heroism  to  vice 
and  vulgarity  and  encourages  a  certain  careless- 
ness in  boys.  In  fact,  the  chances  are  in  favour  of 
his  doing  demoralising  reading,  unless  he  receives 
very  careful  direction  from  those  in  authority. 
It  seems  easier  to  interest  him  in  reading  of  that 
sort,  and  that  sort  of  reading  is  often  prepared 
for  him  with  more  skill  than  is  given  to  the  prep- 
aration of  the  better  kind.  Books  and  papers  of 
the  reprehensible  kind  are  abundant  and  aggres- 
sive. Literature  for  boys  is  pouring  forth,  in 
streams,  from  the  press.  Fiends  incarnate  are 
engaged  in  the  production  of  books  and  papers 
for  boys.  They  like  the  money  that  comes  from 
the  sale  of  books  and  papers  as  well  as  that  which 
comes  from  the  sale  of  " liquid  damnation." 
Someone  has  classified  the  undesirable  books  for 


208  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

boys  as  "poisonous,"  "criminal,"'  "insipid," 
"platitudinous"  and  "too  difficult." 

In  our  city  libraries,  they  are  growing  more  and 
more  careful  to  keep  out  not  only  vicious  books 
but  those  that  are  too  highly  seasoned.  Several 
authors  whom  most  boys  like  at  a  certain  age,  have 
been  shown  the  door,  though  a  few  of  their  stories 
may  not  be  objectionable.  A  given  style  may  not 
be  very  bad,  but  too  much  of  it  may  spoil  the  im- 
agination and  set  the  young  life  awry,  while  the 
vicious  stories  that  have  terrible  fascination  for 
the  boy  nature,  unless  that  nature  has  been  disci- 
plined, are  responsible  for  many  a  young  crim- 
inal. Jesse  Pomeroy,  the  boy  murderer,  con- 
fessed to  Mr.  James  T.  Fields  that  he  had  read 
sixty  dime  novels  about  robbing  and  stealing  and 
scalping  and  cutting  throats.  On  the  other  hand 
it  is  hard  to  estimate  the  uplifting  influence  of  a 
noble  book  well  adapted  to  a  boy's  nature.  In 
his  autobiography  Benjamin  Franklin  tells  us  of 
some  books  that  had  a  formative  effect  on  his  life 
and  one  of  them  was  Cotton  Mather's  "Essays  To 
Do  Good."  Boys  may  not  find  it  very  easy  to  ac- 
quire a  fondness  for  essays,  but  there  are  books 
of  a  more  solid  nature  than  the  exciting  story 
which  so  confuses  them  that  they  scarcely  know 
whether  they  are  riding,  or  walking,  or  sailing  the 
air. 

Of  course,  a  censorship  has  to  be  established 
over  his  reading  and  the  censor  must  keep  in  mind 
what  the  boy  likes  best,  what  is  really  best  for 


HIS  BEADING  209 

him  and  how  to  get  him  to  like  the  best.  He  must 
know  the  books;  that  is  certain.  When  he  has 
selected  the  books  he  may  have  some  difficulty  in 
getting  them  read  willingly.  It  is  fairly  easy,  if 
the  tastes  have  not  already  been  perverted.  If 
they  have  been,  then  there  is  trouble  ahead. 

Perhaps  the  censor  can  add  to  the  attractive- 
ness of  the  book  by  reading  it  aloud,  for  the  voice 
and  the  personality  add  a  new  element  of  inter- 
est. Perhaps  the  boy  himself  may  become  inter- 
ested in  reading  aloud  for  the  benefit  of  the  rest, 
and  that  will  add  to  the  value  of  the  book  in  his 
esteem.  If  the  censor  succeeds,  he  has  done  a 
great  service  for  himself,  as  well  as  for  the  boy. 
He  has  broadened  his  own  literary  horizon,  re- 
newed his  youth  and  promoted  a  new  fellowship 
with  one  of  the  uncrowned  monarchs  of  the  radi- 
ant future. 

The  following  suggestions  may  be  of  service: 

First — too  much  reading,  even  of  good  books, 
is  not  advisable,  for  it  will  produce  mental  dys- 
pepsia. Some  reading  may  be  turned  into  study, 
on  which  a  sympathetic  and  well-veiled  examina- 
tion may  be  held;  all  reading  should  be 
wholesomely  varied  with  work  and  play. 

Second — after  the  story  form  of  literature,  bi- 
ography is  the  most  attractive,  and  is,  by  all  odds, 
the  most  valuable.  A  carefully  selected  list  of  the 
lives  of  the  great  men  will  bring  him  more  benefit 
than  any  other  equal  amount  of  reading.  This 
list  may  include  the  men  who  have  made  history 


210  THAT  KOY  OF  YOURS 

in  the  past  and  the  men  who  are  making  it  to-day. 
That  is  teaching  history  in  its  best  form,  for  we 
cannot  read  the  lives  of  men  without  learning 
what  they  did.  Such  a  method  will  give  con- 
tinuity to  the  boy's  reading  and  insure  its  con- 
tinuance in  useful  directions.  I  count  the  biogra- 
phies I  read  in  boyhood  the  best  reading  I  did  in 
those  days.  But  biography  is  a  field  that  has  not 
been  well  and  wisely  worked  in  the  interest  of 
boys.  A  short  life  of  each  of  our  great  epoch- 
making  men,  written  for  the  purpose  of  interest- 
ing and  instructing  boys,  would  prove  about  the 
most  valuable  literary  undertaking  yet  left  un- 
done. 

Third — health  conditions  must  be  guarded  with 
care.  Eyes  are  involved.  Posture  must  be 
watched,  for  tuberculosis  and  neurasthenia  may  be 
incurred  by  a  bad  posture.  He  may  undermine 
his  health  by  neglect  of  exercise.  Interest  in  an 
absorbing  book  may  be  accompanied  by  too  great 
an  expenditure  of  nerve  force. 

Fourth — keep  in  mind  that  his  reading  is  trans- 
forming a  human  life,  for  the  better  or  the  worse. 
Prof.  Huey  says:  "To  completely  analyse  what 
we  do,  when  we  read,  would  almost  be  the  acme  of 
the  psychologist's  achievement,  for  it  would  be 
to  describe  very  many  of  the  most  intricate  work- 
ings of  the  human  mind  as  well  as  to  unravel  the 
tangled  story  of  the  most  remarkable  single  per- 
formance that  civilisation  has  learned  in  all  its 
history. " 


HIS  BEADING  211 

Hypnotism,  with  its  suggestions,  is  not  more 
powerful  than  is  a  fascinating  book  to  a  boy. 
We  are  discovering  the  need  of  new  literature  for 
boys,  books  that  deal  with  nature  and  with  human 
life  from  the  beginning,  in  an  ethical  yet  enter- 
taining way. 


XXXIII 

HIS  TEACHER 

His  infatuation  with  school  work  is  not  always 
immediate  and  irremediable.  Sometimes  it  comes 
just  as  his  opportunity  for  going  to  school  is 
vanishing  and  all  the  rest  of  his  days  he  will  have 
periods  of  penitence  over  his  folly  and  will  fre- 
quently wish  the  teacher,  or  his  parents,  had  taken 
the  "big  stick"  to  him  unflinchingly.  Sometimes 
he  never  cares  for  what  he  has  missed;  but  we 
seldom  find  that  sort  of  a  man.  His  teacher,  as 
an  essential  part  of  the  school  system,  may  fall 
under  the  same  reprobation  till  his  period  of  in- 
corrigible antipathy  to  schools  is  over,  and  then 
that  same  teacher  will  rise  into  heroic  stature  be- 
fore his  eyes. 

He  may  naturally  take  to  school,  teacher  and 
all,  asking  no  questions  on  that  point,  but  plenty 
of  them  on  other  points.  In  that  case  he  makes 
fair  weather  with  parents,  teacher,  school  board 
and  the  public  generally.  Such  a  good  reputation 
so  absolutely  awaits  any  boy  who  goes  after  it  in 
that  way  that  we  wonder  how  it  ever  fails  to  be 
a  greater  attraction  to  him  than  any  amount  of 
fun  or  self-will  can  be.  But  all  the  mysteries  have 

212 


HIS  TEACHER  213 

not  yet  been  solved,  even  with  the  assistance  of 
psychology  and  pedagogy. 

Between  these  two  extremes  there  is  a  golden 
and  practicable  mean  into  which  a  boy  can  often  be 
guided,  if  the  right  kind  of  a  teacher  has  the  co- 
operation of  the  right  kind  of  parents.  The 
wrong  kind  of  a  teacher  can  succeed  in  giving  the 
right  kind  of  a  boy  a  distaste  for  school  and  all 
that  belongs  to  schools,  while  the  right  kind  of  a 
teacher  can  usually  win  the  most  obdurate  and 
obvious  opponents  of  school  to  an  astonishing 
fondness  for  everything  that  even  suggests  a 
school.  She  does  it  through  his  fondness  for  her 
and  she  wisely  makes  use  of  some  of  his  interests, 
as  fun,  constructive  manual  work,  play  in  general, 
his  gang,  his  chum,  his  collecting  mania,  saving 
money,  music,  nature,  art,  stories,  and  even  his 
sweetheart.  If  he  is  managed  in  the  right  way, 
even  though  he  is  not  yet  an  ideal  boy,  he  may,  at 
last,  come  to  like  the  school  for  its  own  sake.  Any 
teacher  could  afford  to  spend  a  lifetime  in  learn- 
ing how  to  manage  boys. 

If  the  purpose  of  his  school  is  to  put  knowledge 
in  his  mind  and  to  train  his  powers  through  his 
effort  to  get  possession  of  that  knowledge,  and 
then  to  give  him  complete  possession  of  those 
powers  along  with  the  knowledge  they  have  ac- 
quired, the  teacher  is  sure  to  be  able  to  establish 
a  point  of  contact  with  him  somewhere,  provided 
she  is  worth  retaining  in  the  school.  If  all  educa- 
tion comes  through  contact  with  persons,  and  boys 


214  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

are  always  on  the  search  for  interesting  person- 
alities, it  ought  not  to  take  any  teacher  long  to 
establish  a  happy  contact  with  any  boy  who  comes 
to  school. 

The  school  bbard  cannot  always  guarantee  that 
every  teacher  will  be  popular  with  every  child, 
every  day,  but  they  can  do  their  best,  and  when- 
ever they  find  a  hysterical,  complaining  pedagogue, 
who  manages  to  keep  a  good  working  majority  of 
the  pupils  in  an  irritated  and  rebellious  frame  of 
mind  a  good  part  of  every  day  they  ought  to 
know  how  to  relieve  the  situation. 

In  order  to  be  a  success  with  him  his  teacher 
must  regard  him,  and  not  the  school,  as  the  at- 
tractive subject.  She  is  training  him  rather  than 
working  out  an  educational  system.  The  teacher 
must  also  know  how  to  get  into  co-operation  with 
his  parents.  She  must  have  a  couple  of  eyes  good 
for  not  seeing  as  well  as  seeing,  an  active  child- 
element  in  her  own  nature,  a  hand  that  is  fine  as 
well  as  firm,  and  a  spirit  that  is  always  fair  and 
always  friendly.  These  things  would  make  her  a 
paragon  and  such  she  ought  to  try  to  be  at  least. 
The  boy  will  like  her  and  show  it  in  his  own  way, 
not  as  a  little  girl  would,  by  putting  his  arms 
around  her  and  telling  her  how  he  loves  her.  You 
never  catch  him  at  that.  The  terms  in  which  he 
expresses  his  appreciation  of  her  may  not  always 
be  classical  literature,  but  they  convey  his  idea 
clearly.  A  boy  I  know  speaks  of  his  teacher,  Miss 
A.,  as  " dandy, "  and  even  sometimes  as  " peachy." 


HIS  TEACHEE  215 

He  can  be  attached  to  the  school  through  his 
other  interests  as  well  as  by  the  person  who  makes 
it  attractive.  Physical  culture  will  grip  him,  if 
the  school  has  a  gymnasium,  or  even  if  it  has  not. 
The  more  of  that  physical  culture  he  gets  in  the 
form  of  play  the  better.  Manual  training  also 
will  draw  him,  even  if  he  never  enters  any  of  the 
crafts  built  on  what  he  is  taught  to  do.  And  this 
is  true  because  it  is  not  entirely  a  training  of  his 
hand  and  his  eye,  but  of  himself  through  his  hand 
and  eye.  He  is  having  a  very  good  mental  train- 
ing in  colour  and  form  and  in  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends.  He  is  also  getting  his  executive  func- 
tions started  and  ready  for  the  demands  of  after 
years ;  and  he  will  often  need  the  skill  he  is  acquir- 
ing. It  is  useful  to  be  able  to  be  a  blacksmith,  or 
a  carpenter,  or  an  architect,  when  in  a  pinch,  as 
well  as  a  stenographer  or  bookkeeper. 

The  American  boy  averages  only  four  years  in 
school  before  he  is  twelve,  and  not  many  after  that 
age.  It  is  hard  to  hold  him.  A  natural  dislike 
for  school,  the  need  of  his  services  at  home,  the 
necessity  of  working  to  support  the  family  and  the 
distracting  fascinations  of  money-getting  all  mili- 
tate against  his  completing  the  course.  But  the 
teacher  may  hold  him  at  the  breaking-up  time  in 
the  ways  indicated. 

He  likes  his  studies  all  the  better  wherever  the 
skilful  teacher  can  utilise  the  general  knowledge 
he  already  has  and  connect  it  with  the  activities 
that  belong  in  the  calling  to  which  he  aspires.  In 


216  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

fact,  it  seems  possible  to  make  many  a  study  very 
attractive  that  way.  Figures  are  used  in  engineer- 
ing; chemicals  in  photography;  projectiles  in  war 
— thus  the  dry  details  become  fascinating.  In- 
terest is  the  thing  that  secures  education  and 
makes  memory  active  and  reliable,  kindles  im- 
agination, and  binds  the  school  course  to  the  com- 
ing career.  His  interests  are  various  and  ob- 
vious ;  it  would  be  strange  if  not  one  of  them  was 
discovered  and  utilised. 

The  best  thing  his  teacher  does  for  him  is  what 
she  does  with  him  and  through  him.  When  she 
enters  into  the  work  she  assigns,  or  guides  him 
to  choose  for  himself,  and  becomes  his  co-worker 
she  reigns  as  queen  in  that  school.  When  he 
knows  her  mind  is  travelling  with  his  mind  in 
its  toilsome  journey  through  the  fields  of  knowl- 
edge, he  learns  to  put  her  valuation  on  his  work 
because  he  puts  a  high  valuation  on  her.  If  she 
is  wise  enough  to  let  him  do  a  little  dreaming,  with 
her  entire  approbation,  he  is  sure  to  think  she 
is  competent  to  guide  his  dreams  into  their  em- 
bodiment in  deeds.  If  his  plans  are  of  any  in- 
terest to  her  and  she  will  encourage  him  to  tell 
about  them,  she  has  him  on  her  side.  If  she  is 
wise  she  will  know  that  his  dreams  have  as  dis- 
tinct a  place  in  fitting  him  for  his  future  career  as 
do  his  studies. 

Where  vocational  training  is  given,  as  is  now 
being  done  in  some  places  and  will  be  done  a  great 


HIS  TEACHER  217 

deal  more  in  the  future,  the  teacher  and  he  will 
have  much  more  in  common.  The  schools  are 
now  considering  the  whole  child  as  at  school,  not 
his  mind  alone :  we  may  expect  a  great  deal  more 
for  the  boy  from  that  fact.  Even  personal  prob- 
lems are  within  the  teacher's  observation,  and 
he  may  be  much  assisted  by  frank  talks,  if  she 
knows  how  to  invite  confidence  and  clear  up  dif- 
ficulties; and  he  may  be  unconsciously  aided  by 
a  fine  and  directive  attitude  on  her  part.  The 
irgument  for  vocational  training  for  girls  and  boys 
seems  complete:  over  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  boys 
will  make  their  living  with  their  hands  and  almost 
all  the  girls  will  become  housekeepers ;  therefore, 
as  the  purpose  of  the  school  is  to  fit  boys  and  girls 
for  efficient  lives,  it  should  give  them  that  voca- 
tional training. 

When  the  teacher  knows  the  crises  through 
which  he  passes  in  all  his  stages  and  struggles,  in 
all  their  symptoms  and  suggestions,  and  gives  him 
something  positive  rather  than  negative,  makes 
wholesome  things  attractive  and  wrong  things  re- 
pulsive, encourages  individuality  and  proves  a 
good  friend  as  well  as  a  capable  teacher,  such  work 
wins  him  forever.  After  a  certain  stage  in  the 
early  teens,  that  teacher  ought  to  be  a  man. 

I  cannot  close  this  chapter  with  better  words 
than  these  from  Dr.  William  De  Witt  Hyde :  ' '  It 
is  not  of  so  much  importance  what  a  boy  knows 
when  he  leaves  school,  as  what  he  loves.  The 


218  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUKS 

greater  part  of  what  he  knows  he  will  speedily 
forget.  What  he  loves  he  will  feed  on.  His 
hunger  will  prompt  his  efforts  to  increase  his 
store." 


XXXIV 

HIS  LONG  APPRENTICESHIP 

FBOM  the  cradle  to  his  career  is  a  good  long  time, 
about  twenty-five  years,  and  there  is  seldom  found 
a  boy  who  relishes  that  long  wait.  It  is  not  that 
he  is  jealous  of  the  other  animals  for  getting 
through  growing  and  down  to  business  so  much 
sooner  than  he  does,  when  he  and  they  start  out 
together — kids,  colts,  cats,  calves  and  puppies — 
and  he  sees  several  generations  of  the  same  animal 
family  make  their  entrances  and  exits  while  he  is 
merely  fighting  his  way  to  the  stage.  The  lion 
and  the  tiger  are  mature  at  six,  the  horse  earlier, 
the  cow  earlier  still,  the  sheep  at  from  one  to  two 
years ;  the  amoeba  and  other  insects  in  a  few  days 
and  some  of  them  are  born,  mature,  finish  their 
lives  and  die,  all  in  one  day.  This  lightning 
change  in  them  does  not  always  stimulate  his 
patience.  He  sees  the  vast  opportunities  before 
him  and  is  sure  they  will  all  be  gone  by  the  time  he 
gets  a  chance  at  them,  and,  anyway,  it  looks  to  him 
just  the  thing  to  be  a  grown  man.  There  are  a 
good  many  things  he  enjoys  as  a  boy,  but  they  are 
insignificant  compared  with  the  good  times  he  ex- 
pects to  have  when  he  is  grown  and  can  show 
people  how  to  do  things. 

219 


220  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUBS 

But  if  a  boy  proceeds  more  leisurely  than  the 
other  animals,  it  is  not  time  wasted,  for  when  they 
are  through  he  is  just  getting  started  on  a  career 
that  will  outlast  the  stars,  a  career  of  which  the 
threescore  and  ten  years  of  the  life  here  are  only 
the  overture ;  and,  because  they  are  only  the  over- 
ture and  therefore  to  strike  the  theme  of  the  whole 
eternal  symphony,  he  has  to  have  plenty  of  time 
to  tune  up,  get  his  part  and  do  some  rehearsing. 
The  elephant  may  outlive  him,  but  he  is  closer 
akin  to  angel  than  to  elephant ;  the  mud  turtle  may 
outlast  him,  but  he  is  more  like  a  skylark  to  wing 
his  way  into  the  infinite. 

It  takes  a  long  time  to  get  ready  for  a  long 
career.  The  greatest  man  the  world  has  ever 
known  took  thirty  years  to  prepare  for  only  three 
years  of  work,  but  all  the  ages  to  come  were  to 
be  affected  by  those  three  years.  The  very  great- 
est man  in  all  the  centuries  before  that  matchless 
One  did  his  life  work  in  forty  years,  becoming 
a  nation's  leader  and  the  world's  law-giver,  but 
he  could  not  have  done  it  if  he  had  not  had  eighty 
years  in  which  to  prepare  for  it.  Goethe  wrote 
the  latter  part  of  his  " Faust"  in  old  age,  but  it 
was  the  ripe  flower  of  his  many  years  of  culture. 
The  longer  infancy  is  the  chief  explanation  of  the 
longer  age  of  man,  for  it  secures  to  him  both 
the  bodily  and  the  psychological  requisites  of  the 
longer  life,  while  it  is  just  the  chance  he  needs  to 
get  himself  ready  to  make  it  an  efficient  life. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  when  he.  is 


HIS  LONG  APPRENTICESHIP       221 

born  the  boy  is  lower  down  in  the  scale  than  al- 
most any  other  animal,  no  higher  than  the  kan- 
garoo and  the  possum,  and  it  takes  a  longer  time 
to  bring  him  up  from  such  a  depth.  What  little 
mind  an  animal  has  is  about  as  bright  at  the  start 
as  it  ever  will  be,  and  soon  knows  all  it  will  ever 
know.  A  baby  not  only  knows  nothing,  but  has 
nothing  to  know  with,  and  has  to  develop  the 
instrument  with  which  he  will  do  all  his  knowing. 
An  animal's  little  group  of  instincts  are  wide 
awake  in  a  few  days,  while  a  boy's  mind  is  waking 
up  all  his  life,  with  still  more  waking  ahead  of  him. 
An  animal  learns  his  little  round  of  tricks  in  a 
few  days,  but  a  boy  has  to  study  it  out  and  ac- 
quire skill  and  aptitudes.  An  animal's  job  is 
simple  and  small ;  a  boy  has  the  task  of  becoming 
not  only  master  of  himself,  but  of  the  world  and 
its  forces. 

The  development  of  a  child  is  one  of  the  greatest 
social  processes  we  know  anything  about,  and 
from  that  standpoint,  John  Fiske  has  given  the 
long  human  infancy  its  scientific  interpretation. 
All  that  time  he  is  doing  things,  through  the  things 
which  are  done  for  him ;  and  what  he  does  in  that 
way,  is  perhaps  the  very  best  thing  he  ever  does. 
It  seems  that  he  is  the  one  for  whom  things  are 
done,  but  he  is  doing  for  others  a  work  that  will 
tell  on  them  and  society  for  all  time  to  come. 
Their  long  and  unrecorded  nurture  of  his  life  is 
the  finest  discipline  they  ever  have.  Perhaps  he 
is  achieving  his  very  greatest  task  in  fulfilling  that 


222  THAT  BOY  OF  YOURS 

long,  and  often  tedious,  apprenticeship.  Interest 
centres  on  him  as  an  individual,  but  we  come  to 
see  that  the  most  striking  thing  about  him  is  his 
social  significance.  He  becomes  at  once  a  factor 
in  the  industrial  and  social  world.  He  is  being 
trained  to  become  a  part  of  the  social  organism, 
and  all  that  his  life  will  mean  to  other  people  is 
being  prepared  for  in  those  slow  years. 

It  is  really  phenomenal  how  the  interest  of  the 
family  and  community  centres  in  the  child,  and  not 
the  less  so  if  the  child  is  a  boy.  The  benevolence 
and  beneficence  which  he  elicits  from  them,  are 
the  finest  fruits  of  character.  He  socialises  them 
as  they  take  him  into  their  lives  and  as  they  be- 
come aware  of  each  other  in  their  common  min- 
istry to  him. 

His  most  marked  contribution  is  to  the  family 
solidarity,  but  that  does  not  limit  his  influence. 
He  promotes  parental  unity.  The  planning  and 
working  and  loving  bestowed  on  a  common  object, 
as  fascinating  as  he  is,  produces  a  unity  with  an 
element  that  nothing  else  can  supply.  And  if 
there  should  be  in  them  tendencies  toward  divi- 
sions, this  may  divert  their  minds  and  prevent 
permanent  cleavage ;  by  the  time  they  have  taken 
him  through  from  infancy  to  manhood,  caring  and 
planning  for  him  and  giving  him  an  education  and 
a  start  in  life,  the  habits  of  co-operation  have  be- 
come fixed  enough  to  carry  them  along  without  his 
further  aid.  By  that  time  he  has  trained  them  in 
self -discipline,  for  many  a  father  is  kept  from  a 


HIS  LONG  APPRENTICESHIP       223 

less  worthy  life  by  the  thought  of  his  boy,  or  his 
little  girl.  There  is  a  sociality  as  between  the 
parents  on  the  one  side  and  the  children  on  the 
other;  also  between  the  children  themselves;  and 
nature  has  given  the  boy  time  to  make  good  in 
both  tasks.  Other  children  and  other  homes  are 
the  beneficiaries  of  his  fine  opportunity  for  a  long 
service,  in  a  social  way. 

He  has  time  to  give  his  parents  a  very  thorough 
general  training  which  a  shorter  childhood  would 
not  allow — training  in  power  of  reasoning  and 
foresight,  knowledge  of  human  nature,  adaptation 
of  means  to  ends,  and  love  in  all  its  elements  of 
patience,  tenderness  and  self-control.  He  has 
time  to  grow  into  comradeship  with  them  by  de- 
grees and  thus  furnish  something  very  valuable 
to  their  lives.  He  has  time,  also,  for  a  usefulness 
which  not  only  supplies  them  aid  but  is  valuable 
training  for  further  usefulness,  when  he  gets  away 
from  them. 

But  his  long  childhood  is  just  the  thing  for  his 
own  education,  not  only  in  a  general  way,  but  in 
some  of  his  powers  especially  needed  in  the  future. 
One  is  altruism ;  and  a  long  period  of  service,  for 
which  there  is  no  scale  of  rewards,  is  the  best  way 
for  him  to  learn  it. 

He  grows  in  the  power  of  choice,  as,  at  the  right 
moment,  he  takes  himself  over,  so  that  by  the  time 
he  passes  from  under  his  parent's  direction  he 
has  himself  in  control,  with  far-reaching  relation- 
ship established.  He  has  his  moral  habits  formed 


224  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

and  fixed  by  the  time  he  must  face  moral  issues 
and  decide  them  alone. 

Let  him  learn  the  way  to  choose  while  he  has 
assistance  in  choosing;  the  way  to  4;hink,  while 
there  is  some  supervision  of  his  thinking.  Let 
him  be  taught  that  the  long  childhood  is  preparing 
the  material  for  many  memories,  for,  as  in  after 
years  he  looks  back  over  that  long  period,  the 
varied  interests  of  the  epoch-making  experience 
of  childhood,  he  will  get  entertainment  and  in- 
struction for  his  own  life  and  the  lives  of  others, 
including,  perhaps,  his  own  boy.  Let  the  boy  be 
happy  rather  than  grieved,  because  of  his  long 
apprenticeship. 


XXXV 

HIS   COLLEGE   LIFE 

EVERY  boy  is  entitled  to  a  college  education,  if 
it  is  in  the  power  of  his  parents  and  friends  to 
enable  him  to  secure  it,  or  if  it  is  in  his  power  to 
obtain  it  in  spite  of  their  inability.  There  are 
separate  and  combined  reasons  why  this  is  his  in- 
alienable right. 

One  is  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  young 
men  of  to-day  are  availing  themselves  of  the  un- 
precedented opportunities  for  taking  a  college 
course  and  college  men  are  becoming  much  more 
numerous  as  a  class,  each  year,  while  non-college 
men  are  growing  less  numerous,  comparatively 
speaking;  the  former  list  will  enlarge  still  more 
rapidly,  in  the  future,  with  the  going  of  large 
fortunes  and  myriads  of  small  gifts  into  the  build- 
ing of  colleges  and  universities,  while  the  class  of 
non-college  men  will  shrink  in  a  still  more  rapid 
proportion.  Whatever  advantage  there  is  in  be- 
ing in  the  rapidly  increasing  rather  than  in  the 
relatively  diminishing  class  the  boy  should  have. 
Whatever  disadvantage  he  would  have  in  being 
in  competition  with  increasing  numbers  of  college 
men  he  should  be  shielded  from.  The  disad- 
vantages are  increasing  each  year  and  by  the  time 

225 


226  THAT 'BOY  OF  YOUES 

he  is  out  in  the  field  of  action  he  will  need  all  the 
help  of  a  college  training  more  than  young  men 
now  in  the  field  need  it. 

The  college  does  at  least  these  three  things  for 
him:  It  trains  him  in  all  the  elements  of  man- 
hood, especially  the  mental;  it  imparts  to  him  a 
great  deal  of  knowledge  which  may  prove  very 
useful  some  day,  especially  since  the  modern 
system  of  practical  education  is  invading  the  col- 
leges; it  establishes  certain  relationships,  both 
with  individuals  and  institutions,  which  may  be- 
come the  most  valuable  equipment  of  his  whole  life. 
These  three  things  a  college  will  do  for  him,  unless 
something  is  wrong  with  him,  or  the  college,  or 
both. 

Of  course  a  trained  mind  and  manhood  is  the 
essential  thing.  If  he  should  forget  all  the  knowl- 
edge he  acquired  at  college  and  only  retain  the 
added  power  to  think  and  gain  knowledge  which 
he  has,  as  a  result  of  his  college  training,  the  de- 
veloped mind  would  be  more  than  worth  all  the 
sacrifices  he  made  to  get  it.  With  that  mind  he 
will  be  far  ahead  of  what  he  would  have  been,  if 
he  had  not  gone  to  college.  Statistics  partially 
show  these  great  advantages.  There  are  some 
callings  he  could  hardly  have  any  chance  to  enter 
at  all  without  college  experience.  Out  of  every 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  men  reaching  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  only  one  of  them  has  been  a  college 
graduate.  Now,  if  a  college  course  has  no  effect 
on  a  man 's  promotion  in  public  life,  then  only  one 


HIS  COLLEGE  LIFE  227 

in  seven  hundred  and  fifty  of  our  public  men 
should  be  a  college  graduate.  But  what  are  the 
facts?  The  colleges  furnish  thirty  per  cent,  of  all 
our  congressmen,  forty  six  per  cent,  of  the  sena- 
ators,  fifty  per  cent,  of  our  vice-presidents,  sixty- 
five  per  cent,  of  our  presidents,  about  eighty  per 
cent,  of  our  supreme  court  judges  and  eighty-five 
per  cent,  of  the  chief  justices.  The  figures  are 
even  better  by  the  last  census. 

There  are  some  vocations  he  could  scarcely 
enter  without  it,  and  if  he  did  he  would  always  be 
crippled  for  lack  of  such  training ;  and  there  is  no 
vocation  in  which  he  would  not  be  improved  by 
a  trained  mind.  The  occupations  requiring  a 
knowledge  of  electricity  and  chemistry  are  grow- 
ing more  numerous  and  firms  employing  men  give 
the  preference  to  college  graduates.  President 
Thwing  of  Western  Eeserve  says  that  firms  in 
Cleveland  speak  in  advance  for  all  their  gradu- 
ates, in  those  departments.  Cornell  graduates 
seldom  have  to  wait  for  employment.  These  two 
colleges  are  referred  to  as  examples  not  as  excep- 
tions. On  the  basis  of  averages,  someone  has  fig- 
ured out  that  each  boy  loses  $22000.00  in  his  life- 
time by  not  going  on  to  college. 

If  he  should  ever  be  thrown  out  of  his  chosen 
work  his  trained  mind  would  be  better  able  to  meet 
the  emergency  and  take  up  something  else;  he 
would  have  more  resources  to  fall  back  on  and 
would  feel  more  resourceful.  In  truth  the  college 
course  may  bring  out  some  latent  force  or  aptitude 


228  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

which,  otherwise,  would  slumber  on  and  leave  his 
life  entirely  unaffected  by  it,  but  which  would  be- 
come a  dominant  and  directive  force  through  his 
whole  career.  He  may  never  know  what  he  is 
best  fitted  for  till  he  gets  himself  and  his  powers 
drawn  out  and  trained. 

A  college  course  will  equip  him  with  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  most  valuable  kind,  knowledge  that  is 
sure  to  come  to  his  aid  in  times  of  need.  All  of  us 
have  thought  some  things  we  were  compelled  to 
learn  were  useless,  save  as  they  furnished  good 
exercise,  like  the  drill  of  a  gymnasium,  and  we 
thought  something  more  interesting  would  be  just 
as  good  for  a  drill.  But  even  such  dry  and  im- 
practical matters  as  logarithms  and  cosigns  and 
the  binomial  theorem  may  suddenly  come  to  a 
man's  aid.  No  one  is  wise  enough  to  know  what 
he  is  going  to  be  doing  all  the  days  of  his  life  and 
no  one  can  know  what  he  will  not  want.  Our  col- 
leges are  now  offering  everything  that  will  be 
needed  as  a  start  to  the  boy  whose  eyes  are  wide 
open.  The  physical  sciences  have  superseded 
some  of  the  studies  that  were  thought  impractical 
by  the  very  practical. 

In  taking  a  college  course,  the  boy  establishes 
relationships  which  may  come  to  be  the  most  valu- 
able result  of  the  course.  He  will,  in  after  years, 
number  among  his  friends  men  who  will  be  in  the 
eye  of  the  nation  and  perhaps  in  the  eye  of  the 
world — presidents,  senators,  governors,  diplo- 
mats, or  great  lawyers,  doctors,  merchants,  or 


HIS  COLLEGE  LIFE  229 

preachers.  These  may  lift  the  boy  to  his  success 
in  life.  Even  the  professors  in  college  may  be- 
come his  friends  when  he  is  through  and  is  on  an 
equal  footing  with  them.  The  boy  will  be  con- 
nected up  with  his  college  all  his  life  in  a  way  to 
be  benefited  by  it,  and  he  will  find  it  a  channel 
through  which  he  can  do  a  great  deal  of  that  good 
which  we  are  coming  to  see  a  man  must  do,  if  he 
would  be  worthy  as  a  man.  The  interests  of  his 
alma  mater  become  his  interests  and  they  open  up 
social  and  philanthropic  opportunities  of  the  rar- 
est kind. 

Any  boy  can  get  an  education,  if  he  is  deter- 
mined to  have  it,  even  though  he  hasn't  a  cent 
of  money.  All  kinds  of  opportunities  have  been 
thought  out  and  arranged  for  such  a  boy.  In  fact, 
those  who  have  founded  our  colleges  may  almost 
)e  said  to  have  had  him  in  view,  in  piling  up  endow- 
ments and  creating  scholarships  and  fellowships 
and  providing  remunerative  employment  for  him. 
In  his  own  community  there  are  lawyers  and  doc- 
tors and  teachers  and  business  men  and  ministers 
who  have  made  their  way  unaided  and  they  are 
a  constant  object  lesson  and  encouragement  to 
him.  He  can  get  work  as  janitor,  or  waiter,  or 
dish-washer,  or  in  trimming  lawns  or  clerking  oil 
Saturdays,  or  tutoring,  or  driving  autos,  or  car- 
riages, or — aeroplanes.  Education  obtained  that 
way  has  many  advantages.  The  boy  knows  what 
it  means;  he  knows  its  worth;  he  has  put  forth 
determined  effort,  and  the  culture  of  the  determi- 


230  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

nation  is  vital  in  education;  he  has  learned  to 
adapt  means  to  ends.  There  is  a  whole  group  of 
manly  qualities  brought  into  action  in  such  a 
struggle — independence,  industry,  self-assertion, 
true  pride  of  character,  as  contrasted  with  false 
pride,  and  sympathy  with  those  who  make  the 
same  fight.  Other  things  being  equal,  he  will  be 
worth  a  great  deal  more  to  society  and  to  himself, 
if  he  has  to  get  his  education  by  struggle.  But  if 
he  hasn't  that  advantage  of  struggle  with  ad- 
versity, he  should  be  sent  to  college  anyhow. 

But  what  college  should  he  go  to  ?  I  think  I  can 
name  about  four  characteristics  that  ought  to  be 
looked  for  and  identified  in  the  college.  Bear  in 
mind  that  the  whole  boy  is  being  trained  and  not 
his  mind  alone.  We  have  gotten  beyond  the  old 
heresy  that  he  goes  to  college  solely  for  his  mental, 
and  into  society  for  his  social,  and  to  church  for 
his  religious,  training.  He  is  to  get  all  of  them 
wherever  he  goes.  Efficiency,  ideas,  which  means 
atmosphere,  personal  relationships  and  oppor- 
tunities for  action — these  are  the  things  to  look 
for  in  a  college. 

We  needn't  pause  for  a  single  word  on  the  first 
requisite,  for  a  college  that  doesn't  do  college 
work  will  get  an  accurate  rating  by  the  public. 
The  matter  of  ideas,  or  atmosphere,  is  easily  over- 
looked. A  college  that  lessens  a  boy's  respect  for 
things  religious  is  undermining  the  foundation  on 
which  it  stands.  There  is  not  a  college  or  a  high 
school  or  a  university  in  our  country  that  would 


HIS  COLLEGE  LIFE  231 

be  in  existence,  if  it  had  not  been  for  Christianity. 
Even  Girard  College  is  not  an  exception.  He  who 
said,  "I  am  the  truth,"  and  has  been  stimulating 
people  to  live  by  the  truth,  has  also  stimulated  us 
to  search  for  the  truth  in  all  fields  of  research, 
and  to  teach  the  truth  to  growing  minds.  The 
atmosphere  of  truth  and  reverence  and  religion  is 
more  important  to  the  boy  than  any  amount  of 
truths  he  may  learn.  There  is  such  a  thing  as 
learning  truths  at  the  expense  of  truthfulness. 
There  is  another  thing  no  one  has  the  right  to  for- 
get: the  schools  of  our  country  were  founded  by 
religious  denominations  and  even  our  public 
schools  had  a  distinctly  religious  origin.  The  edu- 
cational work  of  the  United  States,  save  that  of 
the  public  schools,  was  done  by  the  Christian  col- 
leges, till  the  era  of  the  great  state  universities 
a  few  years  ago.  The  personal  relationships  to  be 
established  have  already  been  spoken  of.  The 
kind  of  teachers  is  an  essential  matter. 

The  institutional  relationships  to  be  established 
are  not  always  a  consideration  with  boys,  or  even 
with  their  parents.  If  it  seems  reasonably  certain 
that  he  is  to  be  a  member  of  a  given  denomination 
of  Christians,  it  is  important  that  he  attend  a  col- 
lege of  that  denomination.  Something  might  be 
gained  in  the  way  of  breadth,  by  attending  a 
college  of  another  body  of  Christians,  but  much 
would  be  lost.  He  will  always  owe  a  duty  to  his 
own  denomination;  he  will  also  be  under  obliga- 
tion to  support  his  alma  mater.  If  the  two  sets 


232  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

of  duties  conflict,  it  may  so  divide  his  limited 
abilities  as  to  impair  his  usefulness  in  both  re- 
lationships. But  if  the  two  sets  of  duties  coincide, 
it  enables  him  to  serve  both  his  church  and  his 
alma  mater  with  success.  Another  consideration 
in  favour  of  going  to  his  own  church  school  is 
that  the  advantages  of  culture,  which  his  people 
had  and  which  he  indirectly  enjoyed,  came,  as  a 
rule,  through  the  sacrifices  of  the  church  of  his 
fathers.  He  is  already  too  much  of  a  debtor  to 
his  church  to  ignore  its  schools. 

He  must  be  encouraged  to  take  plenty  of  time 
to  secure  a  broad,  general,  basal  training,  before 
he  attempts  to  build  the  special  vocational  struc- 
ture on  it.  He  has  plenty  of  time.  The  oppor- 
tunities are  getting  better  every  year  and  if  he 
should  rush  out  now,  he  might  miss  some  of  the 
best  that  will  come  on  about  the  time  he  should 
be  fully  ready.  Every  calling  is  requiring  a  more 
cultured  man.  Farming  is  going  to  be  scientific 
in  the  future  and  farmers  are  likely  to  become 
about  our  most  cultured  people,  in  the  years  to 
come.  Artisans  and  mechanics  need  to  be  men 
of  culture. 

The  home  must  keep  in  touch  with  him,  while  at 
college,  through  a  knowledge  of  what  he  is  study- 
ing, of  his  companionships  and  of  his  standing  in 
classes,  among  his  friends  and  with  his  teachers. 

It  is  due  both  to  the  parents  and  to  the  boy  to 
say  that,  if  he  doesn't  succeed  in  getting  a  college 
education,  before  going  into  his  career,  it  is  not 


HIS  COLLEGE  LIFE  233 

to  be  considered  for  a  moment  as  a  ground  for 
discouragement.  There  never  were  such  oppor- 
tunities before  for  taking  special  vocational 
courses  of  study.  Correspondence  schools,  night 
schools,  summer  schools  and  university  extension 
classes  have  been  devised  to  aid  him  in  making  up 
for  the  earlier  neglect  or  lack  of  opportunity.  To 
be  sure  he  will  be  at  a  disadvantage,  but  he  has  a 
chance  and  many  a  man  has  gone  on  and  taken  an 
academic  degree  while  supporting  a  growing 
family.  It  is  a  struggle  to  be  avoided  if  possible, 
but  to  be  welcomed  if  inevitable. 

In  addition,  he  lives  in  a  time  when  more  knowl- 
edge of  a  popular  and  scientific  nature  is  in  circu- 
lation and  held  in  solution  in  the  atmosphere  than 
there  ever  was  before,  while  books,  papers  and 
magazines  are  within  the  reach  of  every  man. 
Any  one  who  wants  to  become  learned  in  any  one 
line  can  do  so,  though  he  will  always  be  at  a  dis- 
advantage if  he  fails  to  get  the  discipline  of  a 
thorough  education  in  his  early  years. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  most  important  thing  to  re- 
member that  it  is  the  boy  himself  who  is  to  be 
trained,  through  his  powers,  and  that  training  and 
discipline  and  culture  are  to  go  on  till  the  end  of 
his  life.  The  chief  value  of  a  college  course  is  to 
develop  in  him  the  power  to  live  his  life  and  do 
his  work  and  get  him  into  a  habit  that  will  prove 
lifelong. 


XXXVI 

HIS    VOCATION 

IP  he  gets  his  right  vocation  at  the  right  time  it 
will  be  the  right  settlement  of  a  question  that 
ranks  among  the  most  solemn  things  in  life.  If 
he  gets  into  the  wrong  vocation,  it  will  be  like 
wearing  a  pair  of  shoes  that  do  not  fit,  but  insist 
on  pinching  and  rubbing  and  irritating,  and  he 
is  not  likely  to  have  ability  to  change  to  the  right 
thing.  But  he  must  not  enter  his  calling  till  he 
has  gotten  beyond  the  boy  stage.  Then  why  con- 
sider the  matter  in  a  discussion  of  boys  at  all? 
Well,  for  two  reasons,  surely.  He  is  getting  him- 
self ready  for  it  unconsciously,  and  his  rulers  are 
deliberately  and  intelligently  preparing  him  for  it. 
At  least  they  are  if  they  are  true  to  him. 

He  is  moving  right  on  steadily  toward  his  call- 
ing, when  he  has  a  chance  to  let  himself  out  and  to 
engage  in  some  preliminary  preparatory  callings. 
His  first  vocation  is  play  and  that  he  pushes  with 
a  devotion  worthy  of  him.  He  cannot  have  made 
a  better  choice,  and  you  pronounce  him  a  success. 
You  say  he  will  be  heard  from  yet,  and  you  base 
your  conclusions  on  the  fact  that  he  has  already 
been  heard  from  mightily. 

That  preparatory  vocation  is  quickly  succeeded 
234 


HIS  VOCATION  235 

by  another,  also  play,  in  which  he  is  busier  than 
ever.  For  he  has  now  added  something  else,  go- 
ing to  school,  and  perhaps  running  on  errands  and 
helping  about  the  house,  or  the  school,  or  with  the 
horses,  or  in  the  field.  All  along  he  is  getting 
ready  for  his  life  work,  without  knowing  it,  and 
without  showing  it,  save  to  trained  and  penetrat- 
ing eyes. 

Another  preliminary  vocation  follows  soon — 
still  play.  But  this  time  it  is  team  work.  His 
social  instincts  are  at  work  and  the  sentiment  of 
otherism  is  getting  hold  of  him.  On  through  the 
gang  period  and  into  the  chum  period  it  extends, 
and  then  some  definite  plans  are  likely  to  be  form- 
ulated. All  through  those  periods  he  has  been 
dreaming  of  being  all  sorts  of  things,  and  he  has 
been  doing  some  things.  He  has  been  dreaming 
of  being  cowboy,  lion-hunter  and  the  whole  line 
of  things  familiar  to  those  who  are  familiar  with 
boys.  He  has  been  doing  such  things  as  peddling 
papers,  or  working  on  a  farm  in  summer,  or  being 
an  errand  boy,  or  raising  vegetables  on  shares. 
He  is  really  doing  valuable  preparatory  work  for 
body  and  brain  and  heart  and  hand. 

But  you  notice  that  he  seldom  becomes  just  what 
he  first  wanted  to  become,  and  he  seldom  continues 
in  what  he  starts  to  do.  There  are  reasons  for  it. 
He  is  simply  doing  whatever  he  can  get  his  hands 
on,  in  order  to  have  some  fun  or  make  some  money 
to  do  what  he  would  like  to  do.  Besides,  he  is 
learning  by  experience  what  not  to  do.  And  we 


236  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

must  not  forget  two  facts,  that  his  strongest  apti- 
tudes may  be  still  dormant,  and  that  he  has  not  yet 
the  power  of  final  choice. 

When  he  has  made  his  preliminary  experiments, 
has  found  those  deep  and  determining  aptitudes 
and  has  developed  his  power  of  definite  and  deci- 
sive choice,  then  he  will  have  very  little  difficulty 
in  finding  his  calling.  He  cannot  well  make  a 
mistake  and,  if  he  does,  it  will  he  a  mistake  that 
can  easily  be  corrected. 

The  study  of  vocations  was  never  so  thorough 
as  at  the  present  time.  The  public  schools  are 
likely  to  do  some  training  of  that  kind.  At  any 
rate,  the  manual  training  has  vocational,  as  well 
as  intellectual  and  ethical,  value.  That  is  doing 
much  to  acquaint  boys  with  their  own  aptitudes. 

He  might  fit  into  any  one  of  a  group  of  related 
callings,  like  building  and  contracting,  milling  and 
the  like,  because  the  sense  of  the  mechanical  is 
dominant.  If  he  is  a  barterer  he  can  trade  in  al- 
most any  line.  Or  he  might  be  a  dentist,  or  drug- 
gist, or  a  doctor,  and  make  no  mistake  in  either 
case.  Any  one  of  kindred  professions  might  be 
suitable  for  him.  He  may  have  to  have  experi- 
ence in  one  before  settling  in  a  closely  related  call- 
ing. His  talents  and  taste  must  harmonise  with 
his  trade. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  he  came  to  his  call- 
ing in  a  fortuitous  way,  or  solely  by  self -direction. 
It  had  to  be,  in  the  final  decision,  his  own  choice, 
for  it  must  ever  be  a  choice  and  not  a  coercion. 


HIS  VOCATION  237 

But  others  were  preparing  him  for  the  momentous 
decision.  They  were  watching  over  his  play,  giv- 
ing steady  direction,  tactful  correction  and  con- 
stant protection,  and  the  subtle  power  of  making 
wise  choices  was  growing  in  the  lad.  They  were 
preparing  his  body  by  wholesome  food  and  the 
right  exercise,  in  work  and  systematic  training, 
as  well  as  play.  They  were  developing  his  mind 
till  its  more  hidden  and  tardy  talents  should  come 
forth  to  give  their  voice  in  the  council  chamber. 
In  doing  so,  they  sent  him  through  as  thorough 
courses  in  school  and  college  and  university  as 
possible,  so  that  he  would  not  fail  of  any  needed 
equipment.  For  they  knew,  also,  that  the  boy 
with  the  well-trained  mind  has  a  distinct  advan- 
tage over  the  rest  of  the  boys.  If  they  want  him 
to  become  president  of  the  United  States,  they 
know  that  his  chances,  according  to  the  way  it  has 
already  been  going,  are  not  nearly  as  good  with- 
out a  college  education  as  with  it,  while  he  has  a 
still  poorer  chance  to  become  a  supreme  court 
judge  and  almost  as  poor  to  become  a  United 
States  senator.  He  has  only  about  one-ninth  as 
good  a  chance  in  the  usual  callings. 

He  should  also  be  taught  a  trade,  as  the  Jews 
used  to  teach  their  boys.  The  old  rabbi  was  not 
far  wrong  in  saying  that  he  who  did  not  teach  his 
boy  a  trade  did  the  same  as  teach  him  to  steal.  A 
trade  gives  one  useful  knowledge,  skill,  sympathy 
with  toilers,  and  may  provide  for  some  unfore- 
seen, yet  very  serious,  emergency.  Our  manual 


238  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

training  schools  are  preparing  our  boys  for  their 
callings.  Those  who  have  charge  of  the  boy  must 
help  him  get  a  technical  training  for  his  calling, 
by  sending  him  to  school  or  directing  his  reading 
and  teaching  him  how  to  observe. 

The  boy  will  need  an  avocation,  too,  a  side  call- 
ing, in  which  he  may  find  recreation  after  work 
and  reinforcement  for  work — a  means  for  utilis- 
ing the  by-products  of  his  main  calling.  Usually 
that  takes  care  of  itself.  It  may  be  music  if  he  is 
not  a  professional  musician ;  art,  if  he  is  a  business 
man;  literature,  as  Lubbock  and  Stedman  and 
others  have  made  it ;  it  may  be  one  or  two  of  many 
things. 

He  may  very  profitably  take  over  the  many 
callings  by  groups,  so  that  he  may  give  his  tastes 
a  chance  to  be  conscious  of  themselves, — the  me- 
chanical, industrial,  science,  art,  agricultural, 
transportational,  professional  groups.  This  may 
prove  a  great  assistance  to  him. 

There  is  one  other  element  in  selecting  his  call- 
ing and  that  is  the  presence  and  plans  of  Him  who 
gave  us  the  raw  materials  for  all  our  callings  and 
gave  us  the  aptitudes  for  them,  who  still  exercises 
a  providence  over  us  and  has  His  personal  plans 
for  us.  The  boy  must  be  taught  to  respect  the 
fact  of  providence  and  to  co-operate  with  Him 
whose  will  is  working  constantly  and  personally 
in  guiding  us  here.  Yet  he  must  also  make  his 
own  choice. 

Learn  what  the  boy  is  fitted  for;  train  him  in 


HIS  VOCATION  239 

that  direction;  bring  him  within  the  influence  of 
the  occupation  for  which  you  consider  him  best 
fitted;  step  back  and  let  him  decide  it;  if  he  makes 
a  mistake  don't  allow  him  to  grow  discouraged, 
but  patiently  work  with  him  till  he  has  found  his 
place. 


XXXVII 

HIS  RELIGION 

SOME  people  feel  sorry  for  the  boy  who  is  not  a 
tough,  or  at  least  an  unfortunate,  one  whom  the 
professional  students  call  a  "delinquent."  The 
delinquent  seems  to  get  most  of  the  kind  thoughts, 
the  kind  words  and  the  flowers  from  an  increasing 
number  of  people,  while  the  real  first-class  boy 
who  does  somewhat  as  he  ought  to  do  is  passed 
by.  The  "  delinquent ' '  holds  the  centre  of  the 
stage. 

Yet  there  would  not  be  many  delinquents  if  we 
only  knew  how  hungry  almost  every  boy  is  for 
the  best  things,  provided  they  are  brought  to  him 
in  such  a  way  that  he  can  take  hold  of  them.  If 
one's  religion  is  the  attitude  he  takes  toward  the 
invisible  Father  above,  then  that,  as  Carlyle  says, 
is  the  most  important  thing  about  anybody,  even 
a  boy.  And  a  boy's  grandmother  has  no  more 
reason  for  having  that  right  attitude  than  he  has, 
nor  as  much.  Nor  is  it  easier  for  her  than  for 
him.  It  is  the  same  religion  in  both,  even  as  they 
may  eat  the  same  food  at  the  same  table.  But  in 
her,  that  food  reappears  in  a  bent  body,  soft,  baby- 
like  flesh,  beautiful  grey  hair  and  extensive  wrin- 

240 


HIS  RELIGION  241 

kles,  while  in  him  it  becomes  an  erect  little  body, 
knotted  muscles,  stubby  hair  and  smooth  skin. 
They  get  their  religion  in  the  same  way — the  same 
loving  Father,  the  same  gracious  Saviour,  the 
same  instructing  and  inspiring  Bible;  but  in  one 
it  reappears  as  grandmother,  in  the  other  as  boy. 

His  religion  should  come  in  a  most  natural  way. 
In  fact  it  should  be  his  vital  breath.  He  finds 
himself  in  a  physical  world  and  must  adjust  him- 
self to  it,  with  food  and  water  and  air  and  exer- 
cise, and  he  does  it  by  directing  and  correcting 
himself,  though  of  course  with  suitable  assist- 
ance. He  does  this  because  he  feels  his  limita- 
tions, has  a  sense  of  need.  That  is  what  we  call 
physical  adjustment. 

He  is  in  a  world  of  truth  that  his  intellect  must 
get  hold  of  and  so  there  must  be  a  constant  intel- 
lectual adjustment.  In  like  ways  he  adjusts  him- 
self to  his  social  world.  In  each  case  he  has  a 
hunger,  a  sense  of  need,  an  inner  propulsion. 

He  is  also  in  a  world  of  moral  forces  and  of 
spiritual  existence.  They  appeal  to  him.  It  is 
his  sense  of  need  that  leads  him  into  a  peaceful 
and  loving  relation  to  God  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  that  relationship  he  lives  his  religious  life ; 
but  he  does  it  as  a  boy.  A  boy  has  a  hunger  for 
God,  as  he  has  for  food  and  friends  and  fun,  but 
he  does  not  always  know  what  it  means.  He  has 
the  same  taint  and  bias  that  the  rest  of  us  have 
and  the  same  disinclination  to  all  the  pain  he  may 
experience  in  the  readjustment,  but  it  is  only  the 


242  THA^T  BOY  OF  YOUES 

process,  and  not  the  peace  to  which  it  leads,  that 
he  dislikes. 

He  is  just  as  ready  as  the  rest  of  us — in  fact, 
more  ready — to  give  up  what  is  wrong  and  accept 
what  is  right  and  to  worship  and  serve  God.  He 
may  have  a  much  more  acute  sense  of  need  and 
may  more  eagerly  lay  hold  of  the  help  that  comes 
from  the  Father  above.  He  has  all  the  material 
for  a  religious  life,  if  he  is  only  helped  to  see  the 
meaning  of  his  hunger  and  to  secure  its  gratifica- 
tion. 

But  he  must  be  religious  in  his  own  way.  It 
will  be  wholly  personal  devotion  to  the  person  of 
his  Lord  and  to  those  with  whom  he  is  connected. 
Therefore,  it  is  social.  No  boy  is  religious  to  him- 
self. He  is  a  hero  worshipper,  and  this  instinct 
is  dominant.  The  "gang"  instinct  is  a  part  of 
the  same  spirit.  His  divine  Master  is  more  di- 
vine and  lovely  when  he  can  regard  Him  as  one 
of  them,  and  interested  in  him  and  his  friends. 
It  is  not  abstract  but  concrete  truth  that  he  likes 
— truth  in  the  form  of  persons  who  appeal  to  him. 

His  religion  is  therefore  emotional.  It  fires  the 
feelings  and  the  imagination.  In  original  and 
spontaneous  ways  his  feelings  express  themselves, 
but  usually  through  his  actions. 

His  religion  is  active.  Interest  and  activity  are 
the  laws  of  his  nature.  He  gets  it  ingrained  by 
what  it  leads  him  to  do.  It  is  not  a  fence  around 
him,  but  a  force  within  him.  He  is  not  a  doc- 
trinaire; he  is  both  a  dreamer  and  a  doer.  Let 


HIS  EELIGION  243 

him  have  something  to  love  and  to  learn  and  to  do 
and  he  is  happy.  He  is  ready  to  show  his  feelings 
in  extravagant  ways,  sometimes  scenic,  always  sin- 
cere. He  is  interested  less  in  God's  attributes 
than  in  His  actions,  more  in  deeds  than  in  doc- 
trines. He  is  a  partisan  and  is  ready  to  stand  by 
his  own  religious  crowd  till  he  expires. 

His  religion  is  militant:  something  to  do  and 
something  to  dare.  The  idea,  recently  expressed 
in  some  few  books,  that  he  is  so  very  militant  he 
must  first  have  a  fight  with  any  newcomer  in  his 
Sunday-school  class  before  he  and  the  rest  of  the 
class  will  welcome  him,  is  untrue  in  fact  and  a  libel 
on  his  nature  as  well  as  on  his  religion.  He  is 
militant,  but  it  is  not  of  the  physical  kind,  not  nec- 
essarily. He  does  like  a  contest  and  when  he  is 
truly  religious  he  wants  to  buckle  on  sword  and 
go  forth  to  smite  sins,  private  and  public,  and 
liberate  their  victims.  Let  him  think  of  his 
faults  and  sins  as  horrible  giants  and  he  will  make 
war  on  them.  He  often  fights  the  good  fight  of 
faith  when  we  know  nothing  of  it. 

His  susceptibility  to  religious  influences  and 
impressions  comes  at  intervals,  with  the  awaken- 
ing of  each  new  power,  like  the  will  and  the  con- 
science and  the  social  impulses.  The  sense  of 
need  which  he  then  experiences  seems  to  make  him 
look  out  from  himself  to  a  power  higher  and  bet- 
ter than  the  human.  It  seems  that  his  conver- 
sion ought  to  come  at  the  very  first  of  those  awak- 
enings. It  is  one  of  the  structural  needs  of  the 


244  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

boy,  not  like  the  need  for  education,  but  more  like 
that  for  food  or  water.  If  he  is  not  converted 
then,  it  means  religious  abnormality  and  may 
mean  degeneration. 

The  rise  of  the  sex  instincts  is  a  time  for  the 
most  active  religious  sentiments,  because  that  is 
the  time  for  the  perception  of  far-reaching  rela- 
tionships, both  to  man  and  to  the  Infinite;  also, 
because  it  is  a  chaotic  time,  when  the  foundations 
sometimes  seem  to  give  way  beneath  him.  That 
is  the  time  of  all  others  to  establish  him,  in  a  di- 
rect, personal  communion  with  God.  It  is  the 
time  when  he  is  most  susceptible  to  God's  touch, 
when  he  is  in  the  greatest  peril  and  when  his 
whole  future  life  will  be  most  powerfully  affected 
by  such  an  experience.  Students  of  the  psy- 
chology of  religion  are  saying  that  conversion  is 
an  adolescent  phenomenon.  It  doesn't  come  nec- 
essarily, as  the  voice  changes  and  the  beard  grows, 
but  it  is  the  time  when  his  own  natural  processes 
make  it  fitting  and  needed  and  relatively  easy. 
If  he  is  not  converted  then  it  is  not  impossible. 
He  will  still  have  a  religion,  but  it  is  likely  to  be 
the  religion  of  self  and  he  will  miss  the  vital 
knowledge  of  his  Heavenly  Father  and  His  chil- 
dren. He  may  be  converted  in  after  years,  but  he 
will  have  suffered  irreparable  losses.  No  one  can 
find  rhetoric  too  strong  to  set  forth  the  needs  of 
his  nature  for  a  true  religious  life  at  that  time. 
His  religion  is  personal,  emotional,  active  and 
militant.  It  must  be  presented  to  him  having 


HIS  EELIGION  245 

those  elements,  and  must  never  be  spoken  of  as 
something  abnormal  to  him. 

It  is  personal  in  the  sense  of  being  social.  The 
person,  through  whose  touch  he  is  awakened  to 
the  new  life,  will  seem  scarcely  less  than  divine 
as  the  boy's  admiration  sees  him.  A  boy  who  was 
in  the  London  Polytechnic  under  the  famous 
Quentin  Hogg  went  astray,  in  after  years.  One 
day  a  teacher  in  the  "Tech."  met  him  and  in- 
quired how  he  was  doing.  His  reply  was  that  he 
often  fell,  but  he  carried  a  picture  of  Hogg  in  his 
pocket  and  that  often  helped  him  to  overcome 
temptation.  A  boy 's  religion  leads  to  companion- 
ships and  the  growing  ties  that  will  be  like  cables 
binding  him  to  safe  moorings. 

The  food  for  his  religious  life  is  in  the  Bible 
and  it  is  marvellously  adapted  to  minister  to  the 
essential  characteristics  of  his  Christian  nature. 
He  not  only  has  a  memory  to  retain  it,  but  he  has 
an  appreciation  of  it.  Its  geography  may  be 
made  attractive  and  more  so  as  he  tries  to  repro- 
duce its  features  with  drawings  of  his  own.  The 
world's  greatest  heroes  are  portrayed  in  its  pages 
and  he  may  learn  to  enjoy  them  more  highly  than 
any  other  heroes.  The  most  exciting  battles  are 
told  and  they  are  battles  in  behalf  of  righteous- 
ness. 

His  religious  life  may  be  nourished  by  biog- 
raphy, especially  that  of  men  who  have  been  noble 
and  great  in  unselfish  achievement,  at  home  as 
well  as  on  mission  fields.  He  can  easily  be  led 


246  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

into  friendship  with  people  of  religions  natures. 
The  leader  of  his  religions  life  will  have  mnch  to 
do  with  its  character — one  who  loves  the  Bible  and 
knows  how  to  make  it  homely  and  vivid,  one  who 
understands  him  and  knows  how  to  direct  and 
utilise  his  sentiments. 

He  may,  very  easily,  be  taught  that  the  whole 
life  is  to  be  religious,  even  when  he  is  on  the 
athletic  field  and  in  the  gymnasium  and  in  the 
school.  Play  is  all  the  better  for  piety.  At  the 
time  when  he  most  needs  friendships,  religion  will 
establish  them  most  surely  and  happily. 

He  is  capable  of  taking  a  useful  part  in  religious 
services.  It  has  sometimes  been  claimed  that  he 
ought  never  to  testify  in  meetings,  on  the  ground 
that  he  will  be  artificial  and  learn  to  use  forms 
of  expression  that  will  not  and  cannot  mean  any- 
thing. The  remedy  for  it  is  to  teach  him  the 
meaning  of  Christian  testimony  and  encourage 
him  to  give  it,  in  right  ways  and  at  suitable  times. 
He  is  capable  of  having  a  wholesome  and  impor- 
tant part  in  meetings  of  different  kinds.  The 
things  that  come  most  easily  are  ushering 
and  waiting  on  others,  though  he  is  entirely 
capable  of  participating  in  the  devotional  exer- 
cises. 

Of  course,  his  religion  is  primarily  a  problem 
for  his  parents  to  solve,  but  it  is  also  the  problem 
of  the  church.  The  purpose  of  the  church  is  to 
save  both  the  soul  and  the  life  of  the  boy,  the  part 
of  the  life  that  goes  before,  as  well  as  the  part 


HIS  RELIGION  247 

that  comes  after,  his  conversion.  The  churches 
have  done  much  for  him.  They  are  doing  much 
in  providing  interesting  preaching  for  all  the  peo- 
ple. We  must  not  disparage  that  and  thereby  be- 
little the  gospel  or  the  preachers  of  the  gospel. 

It's  a  mistake  to  suppose  he  doesn't  enjoy  the 
regular  Sunday  morning  services  of  the  church. 
If  he  doesn't,  in  many  cases,  it  will  be  found  to 
be  caused  by  the  assumption  that  he  doesn't, 
which  he  has  heard  till  he  imagines  it  is  true.  He 
has  been  cheated  out  of  his  birthright  of  enjoy- 
ment. We  owe  it  to  him  to  inform  him  he  is  miss- 
ing something  that  was  gotten  up  for  him  as  well 
as  for  others,  something  which  no  one  else  can 
enjoy  quite  as  well  as  he  can.  Then,  when  he 
comes  to  church,  we  have  to  make  good,  by  put- 
ting all  those  elements,  which  his  nature  requires, 
into  the  sermon  and  everything  else.  We  shall 
likely  find  that  the  rest  of  the  people  have  been 
longing  for  the  same  thing.  The  musical  fea- 
tures, the  fervent  prayers  and  the  fervid  elo- 
quence appeal  to  him.  When  I  was  a  boy,  the 
fervent  and  famous  Eev.  Thomas  Eambaut 
preached  several  times  at  our  country  church,  and 
no  one  could  ever  express  the  rapture  with  which 
I  hung  on  his  words,  though  I  understood  very 
little  of  what  he  said.  Truth  is,  a  boy  ought  to 
hear  a  great  many  things  that  he  can't  under- 
stand, though  they  will  put  him  to  sleep  or  give 
him  the  fidgets  if  they  do  not  excite  his  wonder 
and  admiration.  If  he  sees  and  feels  the  preach- 


248  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

er's  passion  for  truth,  his  sentiment  of  brother- 
hood and  that  nameless  thing  we  call  magnetism, 
these  things  will  be  effective  in  firing  his  imagina- 
tion and  fashioning  his  ideals.  Yet  much  can  be 
brought  within  the  comprehension  of  the  boy  and, 
when  the  preacher  does  it,  he  wins  the  older  peo- 
ple besides. 

But  something  more  than  preaching  is  to  be 
done  by  the  church.  It  must  lead  the  boy  in  the 
nurture  of  his  Christian  life  in  the  three  requi- 
sites for  all  growth — food,  air  and  work.  That 
life  is  to  be  nurtured  by  communion  with  God. 
No  better  figure  of  speech  can  be  employed  to  de- 
scribe the  relation  of  prayer  to  the  sustaining  of 
the  religious  life  than  this:  "Prayer  is  the 
Christian's  vital  breath,  the  Christian's  native 
air,"  and  that  will  always  be  true.  The  church 
must  nurture  his  prayer  life  by  her  meetings  for 
prayer  adapted  to  his  stage  of  growth,  by  the 
prayers  of  her  Sabbath  services  and  by  positive 
teachings  about  prayer. 

The  figure  of  food  expresses  well  one  of  the  serv- 
ices of  the  Bible  to  the  Christian,  though  it  also 
is  a  "sword"  and  it  is  "light"  for  the  steps,  as 
well  as  food.  For  all  these  purposes  the  church 
is  to  equip  his  mind  with  the  contents  of  the  Bible. 
It  may  do  this  in  classes,  as  in  the  Sunday-school 
and  in  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  ordinary  serv- 
ices. It  is  my  definite  judgment  that  the  very 
reading  of  the  Bible,  in  the  regular  services,  may 
be  made  an  illuminating  commentary  and  a  strong 


HIS  RELIGION  249 

incentive  to  the  people  to  read  it  for  them- 
selves. 

The  culture  of  his  life  through  Christian  work 
is  attempted  in  the  Sunday-school,  through  the 
organisation  of  classes  for  work  and  in  other 
groups,  as  clubs  and  bands,  in  which  use  can  be 
made  of  all  the  aptitudes  and  instincts  found  at 
his  various  stages  of  growth.  His  interest  and 
efficiency  in  social  service,  in  benevolence  toward 
the  unfortunate,  and  in  missions  grows  astonish- 
ingly, when  it  is  accurately  cultivated.  Almost 
every  Sunday-school  can  give  vital  assistance  to 
parents  in  the  culture  of  the  boy  in  those  direc- 
tions. 

Two  plain  facts  must  never  be  forgotten.  One 
is  that  obedience  to  the  earthly  father  trains  him 
in  a  respect  for  the  heavenly  Father's  will,  and  in 
obedience  to  it.  Lofty  earthly  friendships  make 
it  easier  to  know  his  best  Friend.  It  follows  that 
the  father  who  fails  to  exact  true  obedience  from 
him  is  as  unnatural  as  the  one  who  denies  all  re- 
sponsibility for  his  religious  training.  If  the 
duty  of  supplying  him  with  what  his  life  needs  is 
involved  in  parenthood,  then  the  parents  are  pri- 
marily responsible  for  his  religious  life,  till  he  is 
capable  of  taking  it  in  charge  himself.  That  is  as 
much  involved  in  parenthood  as  responsibility  for 
bread  and  clothes  and  education  and  a  start  in  life. 

The  other  fact  is  that  a  distinct  and  accurate 
plan  for  his  religious  culture  is  as  essential  as  for 
his  physical  or  mental  culture,  at  whatever  ex- 


250  THAT  BOY  OF  YOUES 

pense  of  time  and  money  and  labour.  Money 
spent  in  equipping  him  for  the  life  that  is  at  the 
heart  of  his  whole  nature  will  prove  the  best  spent 
money  of  all. 

No  amount  of  trouble  should  be  spared  in  bring- 
ing him  under  the  vitalising  and  directive  control 
of  Christ,  humanity's  Head,  without  whom  the  boy 
will  lead  a  headless  life.  That  directive  Head  will 
inspire  his  ambitions,  purify  them  and  then  grat- 
ify them.  Contact  with  Christ  will  make  him  in- 
dustrious, for  it  will  give  him  a  deathless  devo- 
tion to  the  tasks  that  duty  puts  into  his  hands; 
it  will  make  him  honest,  and  "the  honest  man 
though  ne'er  so  poor  is  king  o'  men  for  a'  that"; 
it  will  make  him  magnanimous  and  sympathetic, 
so  that  the  successes  and  joys,  or  the  failures  and 
sorrows  of  another  will  be  his;  it  will  make  him 
superior  to  the  ills  of  poverty  or  lowly  or  unfor- 
tunate birth ;  it  will  make  him  brave,  to  meet  any 
kind  of  danger  or  duty. 

That  boy  and  the  Man  Christ  Jesus  must  be 
brought  together,  if  it  takes  every  foot  of  ground 
you  own,  every  head  of  stock  you  possess,  every 
shelf  of  goods  in  your  store,  every  moment  of  your 
precious  time  and  every  ruddy  drop  that  is  dis- 
tilled through  your  loving  heart.  He  will  never 
cease  to  be.  A  broken  life  is  an  eternal  horror ;  a 
perfected  life  is  the  sublimest  object  on  earth  and 
surpassed  only  by  his  glorious  Friend  and  Mas- 
ter. 

THE  END 


ET£y-AST  DATE 
*'.oo        THE 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


